"The French passion for anti-Americanism began in the 19th century with Charles Baudelaire, who translated Edgar Allan Poe. Channeling Poe, Baudelaire described the United States as “gaslight barbarism.” " (Nice opening by Bruckner. @tabletmag's on a roll) tabletmag.com/sections/arts-…
"racism does exist in our country, but one can also point to major differences with the US ... the French approach is not to assimilate communities but individuals, whom it strives first to emancipate from their origins. That is why it refuses to collect statistics on ethnicity."
This is a massive🔑and why Bruckner rightly notes James Baldwin said France rid him of the "crutch of race": "The French republican ideal is to free each individual from his community of origin and make him a citizen, whereas the US defends identity affiliations tooth and nail."
exquisite writing: "The protection of minorities is also the right of everyone to withdraw without penalty, to live as a private individual who is not defined by his roots, in contrast with North American multiculturalism, which rivets everyone to his epidermis and his origins."
🔑contrary to the image of France one might encounter in the US, the reality is that "one does not see massive flows of French Muslims exiling themselves to North Africa and the Middle East to escape the persecutions they are imagined to suffer in France."
"Preaching to the French on all and sundry topics—literary prizes, the fight against rape and pedophilia ... Islam—may be a way for the American left to exorcise the four years of the Trump presidency, ... They seem to wish to regain their virginity at the expense of the French"
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