Vile France: Fear, Duplicity, Cowardice and Cheese

With those words Francois Mitterand urged French support for the Maastricht Treaty and the European Union. And Denis Boyle goes on to prove that Mitterand meant every word. Vile France, as almost every reviewer reminded us, is kind to the people of France. Well-- understanding of their limitations might be a better phrase, but for those who live within Le Beltway: the journalists, the Labor Unions and their workers, the Universities and their jaded left-wing ageing Professoriate, the service crew such as waiters, hops, and clerks, Boyles is as incisive and biting as Silent Bob! Want to knew why Chirac will be in jail after his Presidency, read here! Want to know who's rooting for (and conniving that) America takes a huge hit in Iraq, read here. Why the EU isn't about Europe, but about France and Germany, read here. Why the UN is a pretty useless place, read here. This book is every Francophile's nightmare because it goes after the French with no John-Kerry like nuance whatsoever but a whole lot of funny, funny stuff. It's Boyles' version of South Park set in Paris.

Well, just to clear this up for the "one-star" reviewers, I did indeed read this book, and I found it delightful. This is not because I hate the French. I've been to France, though not since the early 1990's, and I happen to have some French relatives. In general, I found the French people to be perfectly nice and as hospitable as any other people in Europe. I am also a great admirer of many aspects of French culture, from their Romanesque and Gothic churches to Jean-Philippe Rameau and Francis Poulenc in music, to the Impressionists. But long before Jacques "Chiraq", I had my doubts about the worth of France as a political ally. Today I no longer have any doubts that in this respect the French are mostly - though not entirely - worthless. Boyles' book is a head-on attack against French political and intellectual "elites" - their pomposity, their arrogance, their repellent envy-driven hostility to America, and not least their laughable, yet invincible, self-delusion that kneejerk anti-American bigotry constitutes a form of sophistication. Only a guy like John Kerry could find the French elites sympathetic. On the other hand, it is important to stress here (so that the "one-star" reviewers don't deceive you) that Boyles' book is NOT an attack on the fundamental decency of ordinary French people, or a denigration of everything in French culture. If it HAD been that I can honestly tell you that the book would have bored me. I find what's happened to France politically in recent years to be not just loathsome, but deeply depressing. Yet I have trouble feeling a particular animosity toward her, because I think France is an illustration of a wider phenomenon affecting most of Western Europe: a continent-wide cave-in to the most puerile forms of political correctness vis-a-vis Islam and the Arab world that isn't going to buy the Europeans peace and tranquillity, as they seem to think. The Islamic world's misery is largely a product of the Islamic world's indigenous backwardness and corruption, and for any Western country to apologize to Muslims for any suffering purportedly caused by European colonialism only generates an unhealthy lack of realism in an already deluded Muslim world that their problems are somebody else's fault, and that therefore they can masquerade as victims of oppression, rather than the perpetrators of it that they have been for most of the last 1400 years. Indeed, it is in light of Arab Islam's 1400-year-old imperialism and violent intolerance of non-Muslims that the conflict with Israel must be properly viewed, a fact all too often lost on French and Western European "intellectuals" who seem to think that Jews are worthy of sympathy only when they're being slaughtered by Germans, but not when it is Arabs doing the hating and killing. As for France, I wish that that country could regain enough of its self-respect that it would not need to indulge in the childish America-bashing and Bush-hatred that passes for intellect

I found this author through another book he wrote (A Man's Life) and found it to be just as brilliant, funny, and well-written. Anyone who really read the book and didn't just glance at the cover and become offended, will realize that the book isn't insulting to French people at all. It's quite the opposite. You can see the author likes the people of France. It's their government that he has issues with. (It's kind of like hating the Nazis without hating the German people who had to live under the terrible regime) In the beginning of the book, he tells about how his kids got lost and how much concern and helpfulness the French people gave him (the kids were found), so it's clear that the people of France are not the vicious target that others are trying to assume (I doubt they read the book). The book exposes the nauseous gruel that the people have been fed by their very own government and how they deserve better. A definite good read.

I lived and worked in France for over three years, and rarely have I encountered a book on any subject that gets it so right. Boyles' take on France is hilarious -- and, alas, all too accurate. It is a wasted old roue of a country, sustained by memories of former glory, (largely imagined), and bitterly resentful of the success of more robust and forward-looking societies, mainly our own. For far too long many Americans have been willing to allow that the French, for all their faults, at least have the saving grace of style -- but even this is a myth. In fact, being as woefully insecure as any people on earth, they are desperate trend-followers, afraid even to whisper an independent thought lest someone make fun of them. An exaggeration? Read this book. Boyles totally nails them, and it's about time!

Denis Boyles is a great journalist and one of the more careful readers and knowers of european journals and media. You can read his EuroPress review on the NRO (NationalReview online). I'm an European and I think it is very important to know the anti-American propaganda and the bias in our media. You have to be aware about the real reasons of anti-americanism here. These reasons are not your government's deeds. Discover them reading Boyle's book ! 5 stars cum laude Paolo