Why do the French hate us? Part 2
The French superiority complex: of style and rationality
‘Why do the French hate us?’ is quite a provocative title – and deliberately so.
I wrapped up Part 1 with a quotation from the book that introduced it: Robert and Isabelle Tombs’ That Sweet Enemy:
“If one could sum up a vast range of language and imagery, it would be that the British either admired or laughed at the French, and the French either envied or sneered at the British.”
Envy and sneering is not the same as hatred, but they have a pretty close relation. Other adjectives we could use might include ‘contempt’, ‘disdain’ and even ‘snobbery’. Roger Scruton, who I will be writing about after finishing this series, said,
“Readers of Proust will know that French snobbery was (and still is) more potent and more vigilant than the English variety; they will also recognise that snobbery of the French kind, while being in its extreme form a reprehensible weakness, involved in its day-to-day exercise a work of self-sacrificing labour.”
In our time ‘hatred’ appears in a particularly sinister light: as an absolute wrong, even as criminality. From my perspective this fails to recognise the visceral nature of hatred. Our public life now treats ‘hate’ as a consequence of far right political ideology. But real hatred is something that exists in all of us to an extent. It’s a feeling that arises largely beyond our control and which ebbs and flows, in some individuals more than others and in some groups more than others, in relation to different things and different people. In practice, the liberal-left these days tends to condemn it as an attribute of their opponents, while practising it enthusiastically themselves as a behaviour.
French hatred towards the English appears to have arisen partly – and ironically – because of the Norman Conquest of England in 1066, which meant that English kings also had territory in France. Another major source is the way that England appeared to France as an ‘upstart’ power following the ‘Glorious Revolution’ in 1688, being drawn into Continental European spats. By doing so it threatened France’s dominance in Western Europe and later provided the crucial hinge of resistance to Napoleon Bonaparte through its wealth and naval strength.
Hatred generally directs itself at a perceived threat to our power – and England/Britain certainly provided that to France’s elites, both royal and revolutionary. This antagonism articulated itself through increasingly universalistic judgements as Enlightenment rationalism and progressivism took hold. It wasn’t just that French opinion-formers decided they didn’t like or appreciate the English or find them attractive as people, but that the English were bad and wrong and must be disliked by all right-thinking people. A version of this story still holds sway today – not just in France, but in Britain and England itself and worldwide. It has enjoyed a significant revival as the basis of opposition to Brexit.
Superior French style
I think it’s worth lingering a bit over the relational rather than the judgemental: the not liking rather than the unacceptable. The Idea of France that I talked about in Part 1 is after all not merely an invention but offers ideals to live up to: things like rationality, justice, equality, liberty. It sets standards that may be vague, contradictory and impossible to live up to, but are nonetheless something to aim for and a basis to assign status and build some sort of social order. Those who don’t live up to the standards might be disliked or condemned. This is the nature of all society: it must be something, which means not being something else.
Also, we should note that the English have always admired the French and recognised their superiority in some ways – especially before the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. Laurence Sterne began his A Sentimental Journey (1768) with the phrase, “They order, said I, this matter better in France” (leaving us hanging with what particular ‘matter’ he is talking about). As Robert and Isabelle Tombs comment, Sterne’s book composed just the picture of France the British wanted: “good food, good manners and a hint of erotic adventure.”
The valuing of good food and the wider infrastructure of eating and drinking is certainly a big attraction of French life – not universal, but nonetheless obviously present, as much in a small town or village as in a big city (often more so). The same goes for the valuing of holidays and leisure in France, something which riled the Australians before they terminated their French submarines contract in favour of AUKUS.
These customs suggest a way of life – and of valuing what is good in life – that is largely alien to more utilitarian ‘Anglo-Saxon’ cultures. It pleases us when we live it ourselves on holiday, but doesn’t fit so well into our own work-dominated lives – and urgent defence projects. The manners that have gathered around this version of the good life also offer a lot to please, something French observers have long contrasted with the coarseness of English, British or ‘Anglo-Saxon’ life. These more refined French manners have their source in the court and aristocratic culture of pre-Revolutionary France, being taught by dedicated ‘dancing masters’: disseminating superior French ‘civilisation’ in contrast to the more chaotic, frightening, ‘natural’ culture of the English.
As the two Tombs write, “The British admired French superiority and mocked French (and French-style) pretentiousness, foppishness and the careful pose taught by the dancing master. The French envied British liberty and wealth, and disdained British crudeness and lack of savoir-faire.”
In the history, they also note a lot of French talk about the English, both men and women, being stiff and awkward, not pleasing in their comportment and their interactions. Here we are into the domain of the ‘je ne sais quoi’ of legend about the French: of that which you can’t quite describe but is bound up with pleasure: with lightness and delicacy, sexiness, flirting, sweetness (in the non-ironic sense) - of basic pleasurable interaction between the sexes, of charm.
And - as the great French writer Albert Camus put it – “Charm is a way of getting the answer yes without asking a clear question.” (In a famous passage about different nationalities in Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy said: “A Frenchman is self-assured because he regards himself personally both in mind and body as irresistibly attractive to men and women.”)
Charm can appear almost like a gift. Failing to be charmed and saying ‘No’ is to turn your nose up at that gift, failing to recognise its qualities and showing a lack of refinement and sensitivity that deserves the response of a jilted lover: rage, exaggeration and over-reaction. I reckon Brexit and AUKUS could provide Exhibits A and B of this, but there are many more. After 1815 the French struggled to come to terms with Napoleon’s defeat and the reality that much of Europe (by no means all – especially among intellectuals and artists) didn’t want to be ruled by them. There was a strong party that wanted to go back to war and teach everyone another lesson.
Thankfully the French found a more peaceable way of expressing their hurt and antagonism: via the economy. In steadfastly refusing to emulate the British industrial model and economic version of progress, the French turned to protection over competition and quality over mass produced quantity. This helped create a niche for high quality, luxury goods reflecting French style and élan, which showed they could compete after all. The French economy of today is partly rooted in a rejection of the British one – and of British/’Anglo-Saxon’ life more generally.
Superior French understanding
To me, the way the French (or at least some of them) do genuinely appear to know how to live better jars against the pervasive judgementalism and self-styled ‘seriousness’ of Macron and his ministers during their attacks on Boris, the British Government and Brexit. There seems to be little refinement and joie de vivre in these outbursts, though no doubt there is a certain pleasure to be had in abusing others.
I get the impression this unappealing juxtaposition arises partly from a difference between knowing how (to live, to do, to act) and knowing that (making assertions, judgements, of truth and falsity, right and wrong). French government and wider elite discourse appears to be grounded in the latter: of people who know that. It’s the mathematical approach to society pioneered by René Descartes: that you can understand politics and society as you understand that two plus two equals four. You either know or you don’t. You are either correct or not. And those at the top of society know. They have to; otherwise they would have no authority. There is nothing more for them to learn except details. They don’t consider other points of view and don’t change their minds. Overseeing France, they represent an Idea of France which is never wrong and never defeated.
I’m moving on to particularly speculative ground here, but I wonder if this style of seeing the world offered the French what the je ne sais quoi of superior living couldn’t provide: a sense of proof, of apparent demonstration that they were better than the others and deserved to prevail wherever there was a clash of different peoples and nationalities. If practised right, it became a skill (a ‘knowing how’) in its own right: of the intellectual-as-leader who understands the world correctly and claims the authority to rule on the back of it, a revival of Plato’s philosopher-king. This model informed any number of French Revolutionary leaders and continued to inspire others worldwide. Lenin, Mao and Stalin all claimed superior understanding of history to justify their rule. ‘Xi Jinping Thought’ and the assertions of general social and economic ‘experts’ in the West continue the tradition today.
The historical element combines knowledge with power. For if those people with the correct understanding of society and history come to rule, then the result must be improvement: progress. As J. B. Bury wrote in his seminal work The Idea of Progress (1920), “The preponderance of France’s part in developing the idea is an outstanding feature of its history. France, who, like ancient Greece, has always been a nursing-mother of ideas, bears the principal responsibility for its growth . . .”
Hannah Arendt adds, “The notion of an irresistible movement, which the nineteenth century soon was to conceptualize into the idea of historical necessity, echoes from beginning to end through the pages of the French Revolution.” Furthermore,
“all those who throughout the nineteenth century and deep into the twentieth, followed in the footsteps of the French Revolution, saw themselves not merely as successors of the men of the French Revolution but as agents of history and historical necessity, with the obvious and yet paradoxical result that instead of freedom necessity became the chief category of political and revolutionary thought.”
The language of necessity has dominated the way Macron and his acolytes have spoken of Brexit, almost from the moment of the vote back in June 2016. In their framing, it has been destined to fail from the moment of conception - or more latterly has already failed. It’s a knowing that turned into a knowing how – the prediction or prophecy used as a technique to mobilise opinion and heap pressure on those you are making your predictions about, claiming intellectual authority over them and their lives.
The way the French government and elites have gathered around these techniques to confront Brexit and bring others onside will be the topic of Part 3.
Parts 3 and 4 will be available to paying subscribers only. My promised article on ‘Scruton for lefties’ for paying subscribers will follow after these.