Monday, March 21, 2005

"I Don't Like Americans":
Letters to the Editor of Le Monde

"I don't like Americans" reads one letter to Le Monde; "Naturally I am against America", reads another; "I am proud of my hatreds" reads a third, with a fourth extolling the writer's scorn; while a fifth reader wishes he could join the Iraqi resistance.

And why shouldn't the French feel that way? All the proof of America's sins (or her leaders') are around them, the élite and leaders endlessly repeat them, the mainstream media endlessly rehashes them, the citizens debate endlessly what they see in the media, and on and on, in an endless vicious circle…

And so today Le Monde Watch takes a look at Le Monde's letters to the editor section.

The 60th Anniversary Celebration of Le Monde

Read about the Strasbourg man snorting that
Not a day passes in which the United States do not present the world with a motive for defiance or bitterness. … Today it is absolutely vital that we uncouple Europe from that country or risk being pulled downward and into a cowboy mentality dangerous for the entire planet.…
Read about the Frenchman living in Alabama
who wishes to advise Jacques Chirac that when George W Bush comes to France, the French president should adopt "a formal reserve as dignified as it is icy."

Read about the scandalized reader from Nantes sputtering that it is absurd that France should entertain the thought that it forsake the debts it is owed by Baghdad, when the (French) authorities

do not have enough money for the social budgets and when we are told that the state deficit must be reduced.
(Guess whom Gilbert Enaud thinks should take "total responsibility" for Iraq's debt.)

"Immoral foolishness", "cynical", "contempt", "disaster", "disastrous situation": Read whom the French compare Bush and American servicemen to, and (in that perspective) read how grateful they were for World War II during last June's commemoration of the 60th anniversary of D-Day.

Read "I don't like Americans"

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