The French are a culture capable of embracing their country and its history, while simultaneously evolving with new times, co-author of “Sixty Million Frenchmen Can’t Be Wrong,” Jean-Benoit Nadeau, said.
On his 11th stop on a 12-city tour, Nadeau spoke Wednesday night to students, faculty and staff at The University of Tennessee on his book that was published during April 2003 that he hopes will “explain the French in their own terms.”
Nadeau said that France remains influential because of the geography, economy, politics and psychology, and because “France is France.”
“Although France is not a super power, it is not a middle power either. They are a world country with many neighbors, and if you didn’t want them there, they would be,” he said.
Efficient in globalization, they have nuclear power plants, can launch space rockets, are the second largest exporter of food and have military abroad and navy aviation.
“They have an understanding that they will not be the biggest or strongest, but haven’t lost the desire to be a significant player,” Nadeau said.
And the anti-Americanism “doesn’t exist as Americans assume,” he said. They have similar interests in democracy but have differences in values and “how they contain conflict.”
“Some hate American policy, business or people, but I have yet to meet one hating all,” he said.
With strong importance on cultural diplomacy, they have based foreign policy on “objectives rather than means.” And their structure of government is more “centralized” with a separate national sovereignty, rather than separate sovereign states like the United States.
“France can remain centralized and still part of Europe,” he said.
Nadeau said there is a “deforming lens effect” with France. With 400 million tourists every year, it is the most visited country. This familiarity causes people to seek opinions and conclusions, and the “press has to write and find meaning, even when there isn’t one.”
Additionally, he said there is the “new world, old world” factor. Having been a disunified country in the past, it has been their project to “bulldoze into one nation,” which creates their strong language. And more importantly, they have survived many wars, lived dangerously and “lost their innocence” many times.
The French view of the Sept. 11, 2001, attack on the United States was, “You had it coming,” Nadeau said.
Nadeau said the French have seen many wars and been accustomed to tragedy. For example, in World War II 80 percent of their country collapsed.
France remains influential with a “thirst for greatness.” And they “never lost a sense of their own destiny, which is reason why they are the America of Europe,” Nadeau said.
And just as the United States has the “American dream,” the French have a “French dream,” but it is based on the concept of the “common good,” which is defined by the state.
“France means something, and very few countries do,” Nadeau said.
Nadeau and his wife and co-author of the book, Julie Barlow, are conducting ongoing research on France, which is why Barlow could not be present on the tour.
The Alliance Francoise of Knoxville and the UT Modern Foreign Language Department collaborated to arrange for Nadeau to come to UT.
Nadeau’s “sociocultural analysis was wonderful,” Mary McAlpin, associate professor of modern foreign language and literature, said.
And French lecturer Kathryn Atkins-Roberson bought the book so that she could “choose extracts” to incorporate with her classes, she said.
“It is enlightening and will help students understand the development of the French culture,” Atkins-Roberson said.
