Written with the collaboration of Richard Audoly, and under the kind advice of the WAC house

“You’re from France? Wow, that’s so cool,” exclaimed the blond, long, lush-haired girl in sweat pants in the elevator.

This is the hundredth time I hear this sentence. Say you’re French and suddenly you have this glow,  this sophistication, something of the blinding lights of Paris, black and white pictures, seen through cigarette smoke.

I play the game, I go on telling her — for the hundredth time — that everything she heard about France is true, all the clichés: drinking wine, eating cheese, not working but smoking all the time, posing as depressed and wondering about the meaning of life. It’s easier that way. Americans love that story, and, to be honest, so do I.

And then, like most of the privileged kids who can afford to study here, she goes on being like ”Oh, I’ve been to France once. Paris of course, and Normandy for a couple of days. I loved it, it’s amazing! I really want to go back there some time!”

I smile under my Frenchie bangs, I silence the fact that the French claim to hate America. To her, Europe is like Disneyland. Would you really like to hear that Mickey Mouse doesn’t like you?
Ignorance is bliss, as they like to say here …

On the other side of the Atlantic, the French cultivate a highly hypocritical love-hate relationship. What does the average American look like to a French? Well, s/he’s fat because s/he goes a lot to “MacDo” (i.e. McDonalds), s/he is ignorant, and obviously didn’t get that Obama could save the world. And, of course, s/he doesn’t understand anything about fashion.

Yes, for the majority of our dear compatriots, the image prompted by “American”, is that of a fat, die-hard Republican in an over-sized T-Shirt. No wonder why some Americans we know told us they enjoyed everything in France except these proud, if not arrogant, French people — who, for the most part, won’t even try to speak English.

On the other hand, the coolest thing to do these days on the old continent is to go get a “grande latte” at Starbucks, in your hundred-euro Levis Jeans, wearing Aviators and discussing the last episode of House or Californication. In the same sentence, you’ll hear a French curse the United States and long for a roadtrip along the coast, in a convertible Mustang, eating pancakes and burgers on the road. With a pack of cigarettes… Of course.

Not mentioning the fancy Parisian Frenglish: “Je vais checker ca,” “Nice ton truc” …

The US love Europe as they would love an old childhood dream. And, in a way, France is like an old lady who still tries to live on her charms: she keeps priding herself on her inalterable beauty, forgetting that to be attractive, you have to be creative, reinvent yourself and move forward.

And let’s be honest: the French LOVE America. It’s a secret not to be revealed in order to keep our mysterious, dark spell, but we do. We just wish Americans would not waste their beautiful land and often amazing people in wars and overwhelming consumerism (and here, my American friend who is reading above my shoulder says “But what is Paris but a gigantic mall? With art in it …”). It is out of a deep interest in the still new world that we demand so much out of it.

France can’t be on top of the world anymore, so it only wishes to live success by proxy — hoping to see Obama smoke a cigarette some day.