Why do Americans love France?
Yes, Americans love France. No more French bashing! Cocorico, France is trendy again.
To be convinced of this, all you have to do is look around American lifestyle magazines. "10 ways to dress like a Frenchwoman this fall", "7 beauty habits of a French woman to adopt", "8 beauty secrets that only French women know"... not to mention the expert advice from The Cut magazine and its French to -do-list!
Not very fashionable? That's good, we're not here to shower you with beauty advice. Instead, let's look at why Americans love France so passionately. You know, that famous je ne sais quoi that Providence (not to be confused with Provence) is supposed to have passed on to all French people from Deauville to Cannes; this natural chic immortalized by the baguette, the beret and the marinière, the three essential accessories of the perfect Parisian in the American collective imagination.
You may not believe us, but imagine that the history of American Francophilia actually predates the birth of the Internet... and has (almost) nothing to do with fashion and advice beauty. So since when do Americans love France?
Why do Americans love France?
“France occupies a special place in the United States. No other country is so passionately loved, none more vigorously criticized and condemned. It seems that these two feelings are always experienced to excess, that illusion or deep disappointment dominate in turn. » André Siegfried, French academician
In the book Why France? Laura Lee Downs and Stéphane Gerson asked several American historians to tell how they fell in love with France. We learn in particular that long before the rise of mass tourism, in the middle of the 20th century, France was mainly visited by the American wealthy classes. Among them: Thomas Jefferson.
Before becoming the third president of the fledgling United States of America, Thomas Jefferson lived in Paris for 5 years, from 1784 to 1789, and was one of the first to extol its virtues. He then maintains a regular correspondence with Abigail Adams, the wife of his predecessor John Adams. Here is what he wrote in a letter to the future First Lady:
“Here we sing, we dance, we laugh and we have fun. When our King [the Kingdom of France being then engaged in the war of independence of the United States] goes out, they throw themselves to the ground to kiss the ground he has trod; and they also embrace each other, […] they have as much joy in a year as the English in ten years. »
– Thomas Jefferson, Diplomatic Correspondence
Many people have followed in Jefferson's footsteps in Paris. At the end of the 18th century, the City of Light was populated by scientists, doctors, businessmen, journalists and art students, all in search of new experiences and new knowledge. Writers and artists follow one another in waves, especially at the dawn of the major conflicts in which the United States is involved.
In the 1930s, American universities went so far as to offer study programs in France, whose official educational objective was “to create a Francophile elite in the United States – and to reduce German intellectual supremacy. " Just that.
Paris, cultural capital of the western world
France has of course evolved a lot since then and has undoubtedly lost some of its influence across the Atlantic. And yet even today, Americans love France. The reasons that attract them to Paris are timeless: the defense of good taste, a certain resistance to the race for modernity, the appeal of pleasure and freedom, without forgetting the undeniable form of social recognition that the simple having the means to visit France.