Congress serves freedom fries, American military wives talk of freedom kisses, vandals in Bordeaux burn and deface a model of the Statue of Liberty. It’s a good time to remember that American-French relations have had many ups and downs. The ups include the Franco-American joint operation that was the Yorktown campaign; the tough-minded love letter to the United States that Alexis de Tocqueville wrote in Democracy in America; fighting on the same side in two world wars; and cinéastes taking inspiration from John Ford. The downs include the Naval War of 1798, when French and American ships battled on the high seas; Napoleon III’s efforts to put a puppet on the throne of Mexico; Gaullist ambition and American impatience; and the current unpleasantness. The two countries hate each other as often as they love each other; the bouts of hatred are inflamed by the intervening bouts of love. If La Rochefoucauld didn’t write a maxim to describe the situation, he should have.

No other nation except Britain has been so deeply entwined in our history and our psyche. The Anglo-American relation is simpler to understand and to describe. Britain and America passed from a familial bond to rebellion and rivalry, to friendship. Language and institutions hold us together, even if there are enough differences to keep us distinct. The Franco-American tie is altogether more volatile, subject to gusts of passion. Fach nation deceives the other, and each nation deceives itself about the other. The moment America or France creates a transatlantic idol, it finds feet of clay. Why is the tie so strong? Why are the forces that assail it no less strong?

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