The French Exception

Sophie Meunier

From Foreign Affairs, July/August 2000

Summary:  Anti-Americanism and a stubborn Gaullist independence in foreign policy have often marked French political discourse. These traits are coming to the fore once again in France's wildly popular antiglobalization movement. Today, a complex mix of political, economic, and cultural reasons explains the French resistance to ''Anglo-Saxon global capitalism.'' If sustained, France's stand could become a model for other countries seeking an alternative to the new, American-style world economy.

Sophie Meunier is Research Associate at the Center of International Studies and Lecturer at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University.

JUST SAY NON

The biggest celebrity in France last year was neither an entrepreneur, nor a sports figure, nor even an entertainment personality. It was the sheep farmer José Bové, whose claim to fame was his destruction of a French McDonald's last August. He followed that with a triumphant trip to the Seattle meeting of the World Trade Organization (WTO), bringing along 400 pounds of smuggled Roquefort cheese. Bové's protests against American-style globalization and U.S. trade retaliation against European products resonated strongly with the French public and politicians of all stripes. Indeed, in a nearly unanimous show of national support, France is now taking the international lead in the outcry against globalization.

Some might find it paradoxical that one of Europe's most successful economies would attack globalization so forcefully. France's unfolding conversion to market liberalism is partly a conscious effort by policymakers and partly an unintended byproduct of European integration. Despite France's dirigiste past, the recent wave of mergers, hostile takeovers, and shareholder capitalism has actually met general public acquiescence. Economic growth is strong, unemployment is finally going down, and the French "malaise" is now officially over. So one might expect that France would break free from the protectionist demands of traditional special-interest groups and fully embrace its globalized future. But the dominant political debate raging in France today is over how much control the nation should retain over its borders. Intellectuals, interest groups, and even mainstream politicians have all joined the bandwagon denouncing the negative effects of globalization, homogenization, and Americanization for the sake of preserving the "French exception."

The reason for this disjuncture is that France feels that nothing short of its national identity is at stake. Rather than being framed as a question of free trade versus protectionism, the trade debate has been recast as "Anglo-Saxon globalization" versus the preservation of France's national and cultural values. As all of French society joins in the fight to preserve its uniqueness, this debate increasingly transcends traditional cleavages. The French movement is so strong that it is poised to take on an even greater role, affecting European integration and the international antiglobalization cause itself.

THE FRENCH CONNECTION

As in many other countries, the French reaction against globalization shows that the new issues touching on trade are more contentious and domestically sensitive than ever before. When trade was only about tariffs and quotas, its politics was easy to understand -- it pitted importers against exporters and consumers against producers. The argument to restrict or expand trade was an economic argument about jobs and prices. Trade policy could be manipulated to protect special interests, and when governments decided to open up certain economic sectors to international competition, these special interests could be compensated. But with each round of multilateral trade negotiations under the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, traditional trade barriers were reduced and new types of nontariff barriers were tackled. During the Uruguay Round, the "new issues" of services and intellectual property were added to the traditional trade agenda. Today, trade matters extend to all kinds of domestic regulatory policies, including food safety, environmental regulations, and labor laws. The potential losers from free trade are no longer special-interest groups but global causes: the environment, democracy, and human rights.

These concerns account for a large part of the French resistance to globalization. Yet it is noteworthy that antiglobalization sentiment is much stronger in France than elsewhere, and that French politicians have felt compelled to take the international lead in the march against "Anglo-Saxon globalization." The distinctive attributes of French society can best explain this phenomenon, especially the 1990s shift in the arguments against free trade from the economic to the political and cultural realms. The fight against the liberalization of world trade is leading the country through a strange exercise of collective introspection about what it means to be French.

Ever since World War II, French foreign policy has tried to assert the country's special international role -- usually in reaction to the United States. Under Charles de Gaulle, France tried to establish itself as the champion of a third way in international relations, often bridging the two superpower camps. Under François Mitterrand, France turned toward European integration, using the European Union's economic might to ensure that it retained a significant world role. But the world has changed. The new American hegemony -- which French leaders call "hyperpower" -- has overwhelmed the Gaullist-Mitterrand approach. This debate is giving France an opportunity to find a new world role as the leader of the opposition to globalization. In doing so, France has also proclaimed itself as an advocate for the developing world. French intellectuals, pundits, and politicians readily point to the increasing inequalities between the richest and the poorest countries as a byproduct of globalization and incessantly repeat that France has a sacred duty to combat these trends in the name of the most disadvantaged on the planet -- even if (as Seattle demonstrated) the developing countries themselves strongly object to rich countries dictating their social and economic development.

One well-known peculiarity of French cultural identity is its anti-Americanism, stemming partly from its humiliating reliance on American help in the two world wars and the collapse of its empire. This feeling was rekindled in 1999 as the United States retaliated against French and European products after the WTO rulings on the famous banana and beef disputes. Thanks to Bove's deliberate attack against McDonald's and politicians' denunciation of "Anglo-Saxon imperialism," the United States has become the scapegoat for all social groups hurt by globalization.

THE NEW FRENCH RESISTANCE