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Bonhomie? Michel Rocard, prime minister of France from 1988 to 1991 and a member of the European Parliament, described the “absolutely incredible” relationship between the United States and France during a lecture at The Castle on October 6. “Two friendly nations sharing largely the same ideals and values, which, in the strange world in which we live, have never been at war against one another — in 230 years, this has been unique,” he told the overflow crowd. “The first orange I ever ate in my life was given to me in August of 1944 by a black American soldier. The way you liberated us has created — at least for my generation and for some of those immediately following — an immense feeling of gratitude.” And yet, Rocard said, squabbles about international affairs traditionally have been magnified by each country’s insularism. “ France is affected with what I would call provincialism with universal pretension,” he said. “Within Europe, France has the fewest citizens who speak more than one foreign language, and French news consumers are largely disinterested in foreign affairs. The French people have not traveled enough, and don’t know enough about the world, and this has sometimes affected even the top of our political hierarchy.” The United States is similarly provincial, Rocard said, but “it is wished for here, rather than unconscious.” Too, he said, the United States is drunk with power: “This enormous, unequilibrated, uncounterweighted power, with weak experience of history” is a great problem. Rocard is unsure about the future of Franco-American relations. “My great fear,” he said, “is that this rift between France and the United States could be deepened. That’s one of the challenges that could be addressed in your upcoming presidential election.” The lecture was sponsored by BU’s Institute for Human Sciences, the Consulate General of France in Boston, and the French Library and Cultural Center/Alliance Française of Boston and Cambridge. Photo by Vernon Doucette
15
October 2004
Boston University
Office of University Relations