Message to America

from French President Valery Giscard d'Estaing

As one contribution to the U.S. Bicentennial, TIME has invited leaders of nations round the world to speak candidly to the American people through our pages on how they perceive America--its past, its future, its virtues, its faults, above all what they hope and expect from the U.S. in the years ahead. This letter to America, from Valery Giscard d'Estaing, the President of France, is the first in this series:

America has always held an attraction for France, for its explorers, its navigators and its youth. French names bear witness to an ancient presence: Detroit, Cadillac, St. Louis, Louisville, Baton Rouge, New Orleans. More recent history associates us directly with the War of Independence and the birth of the American nation: Lafayette, Rochambeau, De Grasse, D'Estaing ... You are celebrating a Bicentennial that also marks 200 years of Franco-American alliance and friendship. The United States and France have never opposed each other in any conflict. They fought side by side in two World Wars. "There can be no doubt whatsoever," General de Gaulle said to President Kennedy, "of the necessary solidarity that unites our two peoples for better or worse."

How do the French see America? As an attractive, animated drawing that tends to be simplistic, just like any image that one people conjures up about another. Pell-mell you would doubtless see the landing of the G.I.s in Normandy, Roosevelt, Ike and Kennedy, Wall Street, cavalcades of Indians in the Far West, Al Capone, Marilyn Monroe, Marlon Brando, Muhammad Ali, pretty majorettes, West Side Story, bourbon and Coca-Cola, man's first steps on the moon--with a musical background of Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington.

More seriously, in the space of two centuries, 13 colonies in revolt became the foremost world power after spreading over a whole continent, absorbing and melding refugees from all nations and transforming them into genuine Americans. This prodigious epic unfolded in liberty and through liberty. It was rooted in a democratic Constitution, which, with a few amendments, has remained both in letter and spirit the same as the one that was written by the founding fathers.

America, therefore, is power, space, democracy. It is the land of every experiment, of every curiosity, even of every excess, all absorbed finally in the crucible of progress, just as all those people of diverse ethnic origins were absorbed who came to the New World, often to find refuge, always to find a field for their energy and their imagination. You have remained in many respects a nation of pioneers, and your society retains an exceptional dynamism. To quote Tocqueville, whose thought has been a shaping influence on our liberal society: "The idea of what is new is intimately linked in America with the idea of what is better." America means enterprise, initiative, movement, and also organization and efficiency. All this does not come without a certain roughness--softened by an ever available hospitality and boundless generosity.

Like any other nation, America has also the faults of its qualities. Power invites a desire to command: it is quicker and surer to impose than attempt to convince, even with one's closest partners. One is comfortable at home when one has the resources of a vast continent at his disposal, so why bother with others? Hence a cyclical tendency toward withdrawal, isolation. The "American citizens first" treatment that shocks the foreigner landing for the first time in the U.S. tends sometimes to become "American citizens only." This attitude leads to fits of protectionism, a certain refusal to abide by international constraints, the almost unconscious notion that the law voted by the Congress takes precedence over treaties and other international agreements. It leads also to a disregard for others and what is happening elsewhere, and to hasty judgments in complex situations that do not fit American norms. As a result, American diplomacy has often groped for a path between an isolationism inspired by the continental character of the country and a missionarism born of the temptation to define good and evil for the rest of the world.

Some people believe that they have detected symptoms of disarray in this people which is generally prosperous and justifiably proud of itself. It would seem that you have begun to question your identity, to reappraise your role in the world--in short, that you have ceased to believe in your destiny. This malaise Americain would be the sign of your incipient decline. I don't believe this at all. For, in my view, one of your country's dominant virtues, apart from its astonishing capacity for assimilation, is its prodigious resiliency. After the terrible ordeal of the Civil War, it was able to rebuild itself in a few years. After Pearl Harbor, it mounted one of the most gigantic industrial and military efforts of all time. I have no doubt of a quick American recovery from the Viet Nam and Watergate crises. We all have a stake in it.

What we expect in the coming years of the United States, as soon as you have emerged from the uncertainties of this election, is clear:

1) The maintenance of a commitment to the defense of the Western world. Vigilance is a condition for peace and for any progress toward detente. It also supposes, of course, a national effort on the part of the countries involved.

2) An active contribution toward the restoration of an international monetary and financial order, without which the West's ability to pursue its progress and assure its world responsibilities would be jeopardized.

3) The frank acceptance of the effort to organize Europe as a political entity--friendly and allied, but invested with the power to make its own decisions.

4) An increased participation in the dialogue with the Third World. Institution of a more just and stable world order is the only possible way to prevent confrontations on a planetary scale. The exceptional success of 200 years inspires our faith in your ability to face the challenges of the modern world, while remaining true to our common ideal of liberty and human dignity.

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