France's rendezvous with history

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  • Risto the Great
    Senior Member
    • Sep 2008
    • 15658

    France's rendezvous with history

    BBC, News, BBC News, news online, world, uk, international, foreign, british, online, service


    Earlier this week, French President Nicolas Sarkozy said his country would end four decades of self-imposed isolation and return to Nato's military command.

    Here, the BBC's Allan Little reflects on France's long journey to reconcile itself with one of the darkest chapters in its history and its difficult relationship with the US and the UK.

    There is a story about a conversation between General de Gaulle, who, as president of the French Republic, telephoned his American counterpart Lyndon B Johnson, to inform him that France had decided to withdraw from the North Atlantic Treaty alliance.

    Since its foundation nearly two decades earlier, Nato had had its headquarters in France. Now Nato would have to move.

    Furthermore, de Gaulle added, it was his intention that all American service personnel should be removed from French soil.

    "Does that include," Johnson is said to have replied, "those buried in it?"

    Ouch.

    Anti-Americanism

    But go to the cemeteries of Normandy and you see what an Anglo-Saxon business the D-Day landings - and the liberation of France - really were.

    The historian Andrew Roberts has calculated that of the 4,572 allied servicemen who died on that day on which, in retrospect, so much of human history seems now to have pivoted - only 19 were French. That is 0.4%.

    Of the rest, 37 were Norwegians, and one was Belgian. The rest were from the English speaking world - two New Zealanders, 13 Australians, 359 Canadians, 1,641 Britons and, most decisively of all, 2,500 Americans.

    After the disastrous Suez crisis in 1956, it fell to Harold MacMillan as UK prime minister to move Britain from the Age of Empire to the Age of Europe.

    But his attempts to take the United Kingdom into what was then called the Common Market fell foul of General de Gaulle's famous vetoes.

    Twice Monsieur Non listened politely to Britain's plea, and twice he slammed the door.

    De Gaulle saw in British membership the Trojan Horse of American imperialism in Europe.

    After Algeria won its independence from France in the early 1960s, de Gaulle was fond of saying that he had not granted freedom to one country only to sit by and watch France lose its independence to the Americans.

    MacMillan, in old age, spoke ruefully of France's almost psychotic relationship with its Anglo-Saxon allies.

    France, he said, had made peace with Germany, had forgiven Germany for the brutality of invasion and the humiliation of four years of occupation, but it could never - never - forgive the British and Americans for the liberation.

    French anti-Americanism has a long pedigree. The 18th Century philosophers of the European Enlightenment believed the New World to be self evidently inferior.

    They spoke - and wrote, prolifically - of the degeneration of plant and animal life in America.

    They believed America had emerged from the ocean millennia after the old continents; and that accounted for the cultural inferiority of civilisations that tried to plant themselves there.

    Self-liberation

    I was living in Paris when France celebrated the 60th anniversary of its liberation.

    I went to the beaches of Normandy on the 60th anniversary of D-Day and watched veterans assembling one last time, old men, heads held high, marching past blown up photographs of themselves as young liberators.

    France's ambivalence - the same neurosis that Harold MacMillan spoke of - was evident.

    Paris launched a series of events to mark the 60th anniversary of its own liberation in August 2004.

    The city's mayor had given the celebrations the title Paris Se Libere! - Paris Liberates Herself!

    One of the newspapers published a 48-page commemorative issue. There was no mention of the allies until page 18.

    Building a myth

    An English friend of mine, in town that weekend, had remarked how empty Paris felt in August, the month the city empties out as its residents head for their annual sojourn in the countryside.

    "I see," he said "that Paris was liberated in August. I guess the Parisians didn't find out about it till September, when they came back."

    Again - ouch. The caustic Anglo-Saxon wit stings.

    It stings because the tale that France told itself after the war was built around a lie. Paris se libere.

    The words were first spoken by de Gaulle himself at the Hotel de Ville on the evening of 25 August 1944.

    Paris had been liberated by her own people, he declared, "with the help of the armies of France, with the help and support of the whole of France, that is to say of fighting France, the true France, the eternal France."

    France knew, in its heart, even in 1944, that that was not true. It took until the 1980s for a generation of historians properly to re-examine the darkest chapter of France's 20th Century history.

    When I was living in Paris, it struck me that Sarkozy - not yet president - had the potential to be France's first post-Gaullist leader.

    His enemies called him "Sarkozy the American" in the hope that this would make him unelectable. It did not work.

    And now he has taken his country back into the Atlanticist fold.

    It seems to me another step in a long journey, in which France - in its mature, disputatious, entrenched democracy - is growing reconciled to the history that is now challenging the myths.
    Sounds real familiar doesn't it.
    When will Greece be ready to re-open its history books?
    Risto the Great
    MACEDONIA:ANHEDONIA
    "Holding my breath for the revolution."

    Hey, I wrote a bestseller. Check it out: www.ren-shen.com
  • Soldier of Macedon
    Senior Member
    • Sep 2008
    • 13670

    #2
    France and Greece parallel in many ways, lies seem to be a common factor.
    In the name of the blood and the sun, the dagger and the gun, Christ protect this soldier, a lion and a Macedonian.

    Comment

    • Tribunal
      Junior Member
      • Feb 2009
      • 10

      #3
      Once again Risto brought an interesting topic.The article pointing to the fact that the French contribution to the allied cause was small is true.When one is talking about French fabrication of WW2 history,it is a necessity to take into consideration the other aspect:that is,French willing cooperation with the Germans during the War.The most typical misconception is that the Vichy government was merely a 'puppet' state which Germans created,while the majority of French supported the Gaullists.This is actually contrary to the reality.The government was created via ordinary constitutional procedures of the Third Republic,and it nominally was a neutral country even though it had a pro-axis flavour.There had been almost no support for the Gaullists in France-proper as they were considered to much pro-British or cowards who abandoned France during the critical situation,while Pétain was popular among the French public.In France,any mentioning of Vichy was completely erased from history until the 60's,not taught at school,and is still a sensitive topic.The modern French historians picture Pétain as power hungry tyrant who took power through coup(majority view),or someone who was forced into collaboration with the Germans in order to save the French from a certain genocide(minority).Needless to say,both views are distortion.The biggest contribution to the debunking of this French myth was done by Robert O. Paxton in 'Vichy France: Old Guard and New Order, 1940-44',and is still considered a must for any serious student of modern French history even though nearly 4 decades passed after it's first publication.On the myth of Vichy,one of the debated matters is the French contribution to the deportation of the Jews.French would say that everyone protected the Jews,and the fact that 70-80% of the Jews in France survived is the proof.Paxton's argument is other way around,and instead questions why so many Jews died.The author's conclusion is that Vichy deported the Jews of their own free will:Vichy was a recognised neutral country,and Hitler NEVER requested Vichy(or any other pro-Axis neutral countries) to deport the Jews in the first place.He even pointed to the fact that the pace of deportation slowed down after the Germans occupied all of France-proper.I cannot say whether this allegation is an exaggeration or serious assertion of facts,as I am no specialist in French history.
      However,here we will find common denominator with Jews in Greece during WW2.Few years ago,a controversial book titled 'Anepithymhtoi sympatriotes' by G.Margaritis(proffesor of Aristotle University) raised the question of Jews and Chams in Greece during WW2.I have not read the book and cannot comment directly on the book,but it was interesting to read various opinions on the net.Nikos Dimou was defacto praising Margaritis by comparing him to Orhan Pamuk.Dimou quoted Margaritis' interview to Ta Nea,where he said that 70% of the Jews in Greece were exterminated,which was second only to totally occupied Holland,and even greater than in Germany itself(65%),concluding that the Greek number is impossible without local collaborators(I wonder what they will say if they find out that outside historians such as Clogg give the number 87%).Dimou further expanded the theme by questioning the status of the Gypsies and Macedonians in todays Greece(even though the name had adjectives).Whatever it is,it is certainly wrong to condemn ALL Greeks for the death of the Jews,and there were many cases of Greeks saving the Jews.Archibishop Damaskinos called on to believers to protect the Jews from the Gestapos,an act which is completely unthinkable in todays Greece where important Orthodox figures actually praised Holocaust deniers or justifiers.And then there was Athens police chief who tried hard to protect the Jews by the name of Angelos Evert....very 'Greek' sounding name,isn't it?A counter-argument to Margaritis was made by a certain Cretan magazine (www.minima-hania.gr/43/afieromata.htm).To summarise,the author claimed in the first part that the relations between Greeks and Jews were neither good nor bad,but like a typical Greek,insists that Jews were collaborating with Venetians and Turks when they were occupying Crete,and if the Jews had contributed more to the Greeks,they might have gained sympathies.I don't know how everyone feels,but this sounds like a defacto acknowledgement by the Greeks that they actually deported the Jews themselves.In the second part,the author mentions handful of examples of Greeks saving the Jews.The fundamental role,according to the author,was played by a certain communist named 'Tasos the Macedonian' who was deported to Crete during the Metaxas era.No mentioning of his birthplace was made,however.
      So the question is....who actually saved the Jews in Greece,Greeks or 'Greeks'?

      Comment

      • Risto the Great
        Senior Member
        • Sep 2008
        • 15658

        #4
        Excellent tie-in Tribunal.
        The Jews of (now) Greece were referred to by my people as Evreitsi and they were never disrespected. In fact they were very much respected for the industriousness and retention of tradition.
        Risto the Great
        MACEDONIA:ANHEDONIA
        "Holding my breath for the revolution."

        Hey, I wrote a bestseller. Check it out: www.ren-shen.com

        Comment

        • Soldier of Macedon
          Senior Member
          • Sep 2008
          • 13670

          #5
          I am coming to appreciate the very informative posts of Tribunal, good stuff, keep it coming.

          Regarding the Bulgarian treatment of Jews, I find it ironic that in Bulgaria itself they were awarded for saving thier Jews, yet in occupied Macedonian territory, they gladly rounded up our Jewish population and loaded them up on trains headed for the chambers.
          In the name of the blood and the sun, the dagger and the gun, Christ protect this soldier, a lion and a Macedonian.

          Comment

          • Bratot
            Senior Member
            • Sep 2008
            • 2855

            #6
            Ya... thats a 'higher' policy bre..
            The purpose of the media is not to make you to think that the name must be changed, but to get you into debate - what name would suit us! - Bratot

            Comment

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