New Resistance Movement

Is France being debauched--culturally, politically and economically--by the U.S.? Yes, argues one of France's top playwrights and novelists, Marcel Ayme. "Soon it will be ten years since France was sold to the U.S.," he recently wrote, "and since we became the Algeria of the Americans--an Algeria which does not revolt."

It is a theme currently popular in French intellectual circles. But just how much is sound and how much simple fury? The editors of Paris' intellectual weekly Arts assigned a two-man team to measure U.S. influence in France, last week devoted five pages to their findings.

Arts men found stripteases, blue jeans, jukeboxes, cowboy suits, psychiatrists, and thousands of pinball machines. "We went for a walk in the streets, and we heard a new vocabulary: allergiques, rilaxe, sexy, nioulouk, pineups, star, besseller, vampe, manager, fans, cover gueurl, swing, smart, has-bine, and that someone had a djob." They talked to businessmen and farmers, scientists and artists. Their conclusions: French industry, science and agriculture could do with more Americanization. As for the rest--there will always be a France.

Some specific findings:

PAINTING: "Americans buy French paintings, but don't paint themselves. Without Americans, abstract painting would have died long ago."

SCIENCE: "The U.S. has financial and technical means 300 times superior to ours."

THEATER: "American theater in France is a complete failure. Paris thinks that Broadway is vulgar, that its themes are prefabricated, that its psychology is elementary." Tennessee Williams and Erskine Caldwell are the only U.S. authors whom the French consider truly American, and their popularity is based on the public expectations that "there will certainly be on the stage a girl who will get undressed, or make someone undress her, or better still, rape her, which in American means sleep with her."

CINEMA.: "The U.S. movie industry has seen to it that most adolescents look like Marlon Brando, and if possible James Dean. In Paris there are 10,000 Marlon Brandos, 10,000 James Deans, and ten Yul Brynners." But by and large, French moviemen admire Hollywood. Says Alexandre Astruc, one of France's brightest young directors: "American movies are for me the very first in the world. The reason? Because in them one never feels what really kills a movie--the contempt of those who make them for the public and for their art." Jean Cocteau enters a dissent: "Hollywood is a royal house exhausted by family marriages."

SUPERMARKETS: "Self-service has not been popular. Stores are too small; the staff wants to remain the customer's adviser."

PRESSAGENTS: "Public relations is the greatest American discovery since 'relaxation' . . . The Americans can make in 24 hours, out of an uncouth truck driver, the king of popular song. But the French public takes a long time to get over this kind of shock."

RELIGION: "Religious France has not been Americanized. Neither Roman Catholics nor Protestants need a Billy Graham. Nor do they need the advice of Bishop Fulton J. Sheen, 61, who plays golf and tennis and talks once a week, from his office in New York, to 100 million tele-spectators. Furthermore, the French public is not yet ready to receive a mass. forever growing, of 'religious books. In the U.S. the Bible is sold in pocketbook form, in comic strips and in songs. And as the U.S. 'moral fiber' is not as strong as their President affirms it to be, they rush at any book that might give them the necessary dose of security and moral comfort."

BUSINESS: "It is in this field that American influence is most felt.'' The authors point to James Silberman, U.S. production expert who came to France in 1948 to see how French industry would use Marshall Plan funds. Says Arts: "Because of him, 5,000 French manufacturers have gone to Detroit, Cleveland, Omaha, Dallas and Houston. They saw. They came back. They made the shops bigger, they opened the windows, they painted the walls yellow and green. They installed loudspeakers that played mambas and accordion waltzes." French industry now has production experts, calculating machines, automation, and assembly-line production for cars and refrigerators. "Every single French manufacturer has his eyes turned towards America."

Concluded Arts: "The street deceives us with its snack bars, its American films, its posters, its fishtailed cars, its okays and its 'tilts.' Although American influence is quite noticeable, it doesn't exist. It has changed the outward appearance, but not our real life. She teaches us how to sell our books, but not how to write them. She buys our pictures, but we paint them. France's faculty of resistance is incredible; she will always eat French fries, love Pierre Fresnay, soccer, nougat, ordinary red wine. She isn't going to forget her old loves for the sake of hot dogs, James Dean, baseball, rock and roll, popcorn, cold milk and Pat Boone.

"Our conclusion might seem brief. All that France owes America is dollars. America would love to give something else. France only takes the money."

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