The French Way (4 page)

Anxiety and curiosity marked the Left's response to the 1980 election. Without hesitation socialist leaders opened fire. Laurent Fabius, a future Socialist Party minister and prime minister, thought the new president was oblivious to the problems of the Third World, and his assertion of U.S. leadership through military strength risked confrontations. Jean-Pierre Chevenement, another future minister for Mitterrand, warned about the danger of rising international tension given the “imperialist” convictions of Reagan.
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The Republican victory, it was feared by some socialists, opened the way to reactionaries like the Moral Majority.
Le Monde
was only slightly less worried than the socialists. The election represented simultaneously a “patriotic, interventionist, and isolationist earthquake.”
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Transatlantic relations were threatened by a president who believed you could eliminate differences by speaking loudly, taking a hard line toward Moscow, and forcing Europeans
to align with the policies of Washington, D.C. There were larger issues: Would Reagan adopt a pugnacious and unrestrained form of American interventionism or retreat into “fortress America”? Would Europeans profit from a strong United States willing to face the Soviets, or would they suffer from American domination?

For the first two years of Reagan's tenure, French perceptions of the United States were no more upbeat than they had been under Jimmy Carter. A majority blamed Reagan's policies—for example, high interest rates—for harming the French economy.
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Dissatisfaction with transatlantic economic relations ranged across the entire political spectrum.
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As for attractive foreign prototypes, when asked in 1981 which model of socioeconomic reform would be best for France, most of those surveyed chose social democracy as represented by West Germany or Sweden while only a small number (17 percent) preferred following American “liberal capitalism.”
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The deep recession that accompanied the first two years of Reagan's administration confirmed French suspicions.

Then, rather quickly, perceptions brightened. The American success at creating jobs after 1982 and Washington's tough diplomatic stance won approval from the French. Books and articles began to appear praising the economic accomplishments of the Reagan administration. Given rising Cold War tension, the French were reassured that the United States would protect them in the event of a confrontation with the Soviet Union. Most unusual was the absence of fear of American domination. In 1984, half of those surveyed were not worried about Washington's interference in French foreign policy and slightly less expressed anxiety about interference in economic affairs.
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Apprehension of Yankee domination faded in spite of the bolder posture of Washington.

The management of the economy under the Reagan administration attracted considerable comment and made some converts, but it also inspired skepticism and criticism. No one could deny that so-called Reaganomics had produced impressive results: gone was the depressing “stagflation” of the 1970s. The conservative media took some pleasure
in listing American achievements after 1982: the creation of a million jobs, a fall in inflation, strong economic growth, a buoyant entrepreneurial spirit, lower taxes, and fewer regulations. Such glowing assessments were often made with either an implicit or explicit comparison to the poor performance of the French economy under the socialists: the Yankees were doing better.

Reaganomics inspired a few prominent French followers. Guy Sorman, a lecturer at Sciences Po and a columnist/author, was perhaps the best known.
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Reagan's election, to him, was the turning point in a global shift toward economic liberalism. (“Liberalism” in the European lexicon has the opposite meaning of the term as used by Americans: it refers to a market oriented economy and an aversion to state intervention.) Sorman borrowed heavily from the Chicago school of economics (e.g., that of Friedrich Hayek), celebrated supply-side economics, cited neoconservatives like Norman Podhoretz, and wrote ardently about both Jerry Falwell's Moral Majority and the advent of computers. “The neoconservative ideology is at present the only Western model that successfully unites morality and the microprocessor.”
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His message was simple; he was against socialism, bureaucracy, big government, and technocrats and he was for free enterprise, individual initiative, and the market. Since the motor of the economy was the entrepreneurial spirit, which the Americans embodied, he recommended that the French deregulate their economy and adopt an “optimistic liberal ideology.”
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“Reagan the simple cowboy has become the devil for some of the Left,” Sorman wrote, because “he crystallizes a coherent ideological system that is an effective counter to the socialist model.”
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President Reagan returned the compliment by citing Sorman in a 1984 speech at his alma mater in Illinois as one of the French thinkers who “are rejecting the old cliches about state power and rediscovering the danger such power poses to personal freedom.”
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Reaganomics attracted other French fans. Philippe Lefournier, writing for
L'Expansion
, a major business review, praised the United States as “the first country to emerge from the great ‘crisis' of capitalism”
and spoke of the “exciting future” of the nation that had “married hightech with the old spirit of enterprise and an awakened patriotism.”
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Louis Pauwels, the director of
Le Figaro Magazine
, paired Ronald Reagan with Pope Jean Paul II as the two great contemporary “charismatic leaders of human freedom.”
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As a disciple of American neoconservatives, Pauwels proselytized for market liberalism because it was the natural human order, because it assured prosperity, and because it was based on Christian principles. He urged the French to admit that Reaganomics worked, that socialism had failed, and that learning from America meant cutting taxes, relying on private initiative, and taking pride in national and traditional values. Even the Left, on occasion, was complimentary, or as
Liberation
observed, grudgingly, “Less State, fewer taxes, more optimism: the Reagan recipe was simple, even simplistic, but it has worked.”
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A virtual tour of Parisian bookstores, conducted by
Le Nouvel Observateur
, demonstrated the popularity of titles like those by Sorman celebrating market liberalism, including translations of the “anarcho-Reaganite” Milton Friedman. Writing for this review Alain Minc, a young economist and corporate manager, warned the “French Reaganites” against expecting miracles from the market, yet he advised his socialist friends that “the Left will be liberal or it will not survive.”
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If the press invariably pointed out the obvious shortcoming of Reaganomics like big budget deficits, it tended to evaluate these as less important than its accomplishments.
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The only question was, Why had the Americans succeeded? And here the answers scattered. The possibilities were many: a strong dollar, lower taxes, deregulation, deficit spending, new technologies like computers, industrial redeployment, a flexible labor market, immigrant workers, an expanding service sector, and/or a probusiness atmosphere. Or, as Jude Wanniski, the originator of the expression “supply-side economics” simply answered, “Be confident in long term investment, in enterprise, and in individuals. You will see how well it works. Even Mitterrand understands it.”
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Not all conservatives, however, were pro-Reagan enthusiasts. Sorman lamented that the “intellectual and political Right” were too
dirigiste
to accept Reagan's liberalism.
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A popular and otherwise sympathetic book on Americans written by the New York correspondent for
Le Figaro
disdained Reagan's social and environmental policies.
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Some experts were not convinced that American methods were transferable to Europe. They pointed out the unique position of the dollar, the openness of the American economy, the perils of deficits, and French dependence on the state.
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Should we imitate the Americans, even if we could? some asked. Or, as one business journal put it, “Our old country often envies the benefits of the American model while forgetting the basis on which it is built, the sacrifices and the dynamism it assumes….Young Americans have bet on optimism, work, ambition, personal independence, a taste for challenge, family, and the United States,” with the consequence of creating a generation of egotistical careerists.
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The moderate and left-wing press mocked the American “soap bubble” economy built on huge budgetary and commercial deficits, growing social inequality, cutbacks in social assistance, brutal layoffs in rust belt industries, high interest rates, “McJobs” (low-level, part-time work in fast-food outlets), and protectionism.
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Nicole Bernheim, the correspondent in New York for
Le Monde
, indicted Reagan for shredding America's already tattered social safety net, widening inequality, and deepening discontent among minorities. The plight of the unemployed in northern cities who trekked off looking for jobs reminded her of Steinbeck's
The Grapes of Wrath.
Reagan simplified issues, like calling the USSR the evil empire, to win the support of the American heartland: he had revived the Left's caricature of Uncle Sam as rich, ignorant, and selfish. Bernheim reported that the French who had fled the socialists after 1981 to make their fortune in the United States had discovered the precariousness and expense of life under “wild capitalism” and were ready to go home.
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The left-leaning weekly
Le Nouvel Observateur
offered a mixed assessment that, in the end, was more hostile than generous. It credited Reagan with engineering recovery, conceded that France should import America's entrepreneurial elan, and noted how the socialist government was interested in learning
from the Americans—but it scorned Reaganism for its methods and its costs. In order to kick-start growth, “Reagan the ruthless”
(Reagan I'Impitoyable)
, as he was lampooned, had encouraged cruel restructuring in sectors like the automobile industry, which had forced the mayor of Detroit to rely on nightly curfews to keep order. The American “miracle,” as far as this review was concerned, was built on deficits, the impoverishment of the marginal, an artificially strong currency, and selfishness: “to live as an American, is, above all, to live for yourself.”
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The prototype of Reagan's economy were the “yuppies,” the children of “baby boomers,” whom the Left, updating the historical stereotype of Americans, caricatured as overly planned, materialistic go-getters who had no time for vacations, enjoyment, or marriage and possibly preferred physical exercise to sex.
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International affairs will be discussed in detail in chapter 3, but a brief note is helpful here. At first the French thought poorly of the Reagan administration's international posture; a majority in late 1982, mainly among socialists and communists, but also some associated with the Right, volunteered a very, or rather, “bad opinion” of America's position in world affairs.
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But attitudes improved dramatically between 1982 and 1984 among men and women, among all ages and occupations, and for those associated with both the Left and the Right, and this image remained flattering, in the range of 70 percent, through the early years of the administration of President George H. W. Bush. On the eve of the fall of the Berlin Wall the French viewed the United States as warmly as did the West Germans and the British.
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But this pretty picture needs shading. The French welcomed the assurances given by the Reagan administration that the United States would come to their assistance if the Soviets threatened, but this appreciation was hardly novel: the French had about the same level of confidence in Jimmy Carter in 1977.
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And Reagan's international stance never commanded a majority. In 1984 he won less support for his overall policy than had Carter.
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Reagan's strong stand against the Soviet Union divided the French into thirds: for, against, and no opinion.
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The electoral campaign and eventual reelection of Ronald Reagan in November 1984 offered the French an opportunity to assess his achievements. In that year Reagan's reputation peaked; early disdain had virtually disappeared. Still, skepticism remained the rule.

President Reagan's standing within the Hexagon by 1984 was marginally better than that of his immediate predecessors in the White House and certainly higher among the French than it was among other West Europeans. When asked in late October for whom, if they had the vote, they would cast their ballot, 38 percent of the French selected Ronald Reagan and 25 percent preferred his opponent, Walter Mondale—but 37 percent gave no response.
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In other words, those who were indifferent were almost as numerous as those who “voted” for him. This choice was, nevertheless, relatively strong compared to the tepid support given Presidents Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, and Jimmy Carter before him—though Carter had his advocates—and to that awarded George H. W. Bush in the 1988 election. And Reagan's 38 percent backing was uniformly firm among men and women, among all age groups, and for almost all occupations; the anomalies were relatively higher support among businesspeople, from shopkeepers to top managers, but relatively low approval from farmers. A comparison among West Europeans revealed much cooler attitudes among West Germans and the British, who split their “votes” almost equally between Mondale and Reagan.
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More French men and women in 1984 thought of themselves as pro-American, as opposed to anti-American (44 percent versus 15 percent) than did West Germans (35 percent versus 19 percent) or the British (39 percent versus 20 percent). But this international comparison can be readily explained: it was Reagan's foreign policy. Far more of the West Germans and the British than the French thought his policies had increased the chance of war.
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Reagan's strong stance against the Soviets, as we shall see, was more welcome in France.