Home > NON TO FRENCH WINE, OUI TO FRENCH AD AGENCY

NON TO FRENCH WINE, OUI TO FRENCH AD AGENCY

by Open-Publishing - Tuesday 22 February 2005
14 comments

Edito Wars and conflicts Governments France

When France refused to join in the "coalition of the willing," the right-wing propaganda machine rolled out the "Hate-Everything-French" campaign. Conservative media mouthpieces like Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh led the Franco phobic charge, exhorting their benighted minions to boycott everything French. There was even an effort to change French fries to "freedom fries." French bashing could be heard and read, in varying degrees of ferocity, across the nation as the Bush junta geared up for its preemptive war against Iraq. In no time, the anti-Gallic sentiment reached a fever pitch.

A popular joke at the time asked the question, "How many Frenchmen would it take to defend Paris?" The answer was, "None. Frenchmen never defended Paris." It made no difference that the French government had wisely chosen to ignore the now-proven-false claims that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction and was in league with Osama bin Laden. Many Americans, some of them liberals, blindly followed the lead of the propagandists and denounced the French as "fair weather friends" and even "cowards." As George Walker Bush proclaimed, "You are either with us or against us." And, apparently, the French were against us.

Offhand, I don’t know how effective this anti-French boycott was, but I suspect that there were some weak natures who were forced to become closeted consumers of Brie cheese and French wines. Nonetheless, a few jingoistic restaurant owners had new menus printed up, substituting freedom fries for the now despised French fries. Today, even as we see warm and fuzzy images of George Bush cozying up to Jacques Chirac in Paris, these anti-French sentiments still prevail. But, apparently, the leaders in the Pentagon have a different, more positive view of the French, if the contracts they make are any indication.

In January 2001, many months before September 11, the Army had inked a $150 million contract with Leo Burnett USA, a wholly owned subsidiary of the French advertising giant, Publicis Groupe, to handle its lethargic recruitment program. After some research was done, Burnett came up with the "An Army of One" campaign, which proved very successful in filling the ranks with new recruits. Now, you may be asking, "So what? That was then, this is now. There was no war when the Army made its deal with Leo Burnett USA. So, what’s the point?"

The point is that the Army has recently renewed its contract with Leo Burnett USA to the tune of $100 million. (Burnett’s press release on the contract can be found at leoburnett.com) I haven’t heard any complaints from O’Reilly et al. regarding this unholy alliance betyween the US Army and the Publicis Groupe subsidiary. Perhaps they just don’t know, which seems to be their general state of mind when it comes to factual matters. Rest assured, though, if someone were to point out this apparent treachery to them, they would probably come up with an appropriate rationalization for it sooner than you can say pomme frite.

Forum posts

  • As a prior-service military soldier, I say it’s time to leave N.A.T.O. and let France and Germany

    defend themselves. I love Freedom fries, which has nothing to do with France, and am glad I

    hate wine. However, people that never have known what it means to be in uniform...complain the

    most, always crying about our leaders. Yes, France was down in dirty...in the kick-backs of Iraq.

    No wonder they said, "Non!"

    • That would be really nice if American troops would leave us and take their nukes home. We don’t
      maintain a violent culture in Europe.

      So, Ami go home!

    • Yes we should pull our troops and nukes out of Europe. Let them worry about their own defense and security, they surely aren’t worried about ours. Lets see how their non functioning socialist economies fare with the added burden of providing their own defense.

      They can’t afford it. They’ll see how protective "soft power" is when the US security umbrella doesn’t cover them. You want to sell the defense technology we came up with to China? Guess what, you’ll get cut off.

    • Please tell me that you are joking! All the World Wars started in Europe and now you want to arm China. And China needs advance tech...to gain their goals, world domination. And if that happens...America will be your cry.

  • Countries such as France and Germany were correct in their assessment that the US did not have suffiecient evicence of weapons of mass destruction to risk the lives of their citizens and their resources. In the end, they were right. The US was wrong in all cases and the GOP has spun and re-spun the war to try to find some way to justify the largest mistake of the US in recent times. If George Bush was president of any company, he would have been fired long ago...unfortunately, the US does not hold the president (when republican) up to even the lowest of standards (and I truely mean lowest). How dare he risk the lives of US soldiers for one lie after another. What an embarassment. The US has a lot to learn from the EU.

    • The reason France and Germany did not join in the Iraq war was because their economies are not based on war like our’s is here in the U.S. Our military industrial complex based economy must "find" new reasons all of the time for another war. Have you noticed that we have never had peace in this country? Look at our long history, there has never been a time of peace here. War is inbred in our national roots. It is America. It is what we are known for around the world and it is what we do best...3/4ths of our tax money goes toward war, we have war colleges, we have ever larger weapons and an arms race with any other country we can drag into one. Bush is unhappy with europe because they won’t play along with the war industry here. They don’t need war to keep their countries from going broke. Our country is broke, but with our war credit cards and the social security funds (which have almost all been spent on our wars with the world) we will continue to squander the rest of our resources on the likes of General Dynamics, Boeing, G.E., Halliburton, Kellogg Brown and Root, etc., etc., The unemployment rolls would be huge if the military personnel had to get real jobs. We do not spend one damn dime on promoting world peace and Americans don’t even question this we are so programmed not to expect anything but more nuclear weapons, tanks, planes, bombs, missles, ships, rockets, poison gas, biological weapons, weapons of mass destruction, weapons of mass deception, etc., etc. We would not know what to do if some of our tax money was actually spent on us. We spend trillions of dollars on killing our fellow human beings and we wouldn’t have it any other way.

    • So Sad ..but very true. Well written. It is up to ordinary Americans to challenge this war/profit link. It only benefits a few rich individuals and brings hardship and death to millions.

      It is well documented, although not surprisingly never broadcasted, that US foreign policy since WW 2 has resulted in the death of 17 million people.

    • The reason the countries of france and Germany didnot join: both countries have an huge influx of Arab---Muslim---Middeleast----peoples. they out-number the Eu citizens of thoses countries. Like Latin Americans do in the US...so why go against popular opinion?

    • Now that statement is profoundly racist and stupid.

    • This asshole doesn’t know what the hell he’s talking about. No more than 6% of the total US budget goes to the military. The idea that France and Germany were against the war for altruistic reasons is complete bullshit. They were against it because they were in bed with Saddam, along with the bullshit "do nothing but spend US tax dollars" UN.

      We don’t spend a dime promoting world peace??? Fuck off. We spend more and more importantly do more to promote world peace then the rest of the world combined.

    • Yes, and that class of instruction: one, how to pay terrorist for citzens. two, how not to defend a country. three, study president clinton’s adminstration---- a europe based nightmare.

    • another broad-based berkly crying...individual.

    • That statement is 100% correct. Truth in every word! The poor Jewish population can affirm, inside the Eu.

  • I do love my french wine.