. . . and Paris
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
A little item in the New York Times last week reported on a decline in American tourism to France. The French government, reported the Times, “said that 18.3 percent fewer American tourists visited France last year, a bigger drop than in 2002, when American visitors dropped by 15.3 percent…The government said currency exchange rates, a summer heat wave, and wild fires kept foreigners away.”
Hmmm. Exchange rates, a heat wave, wild fires…what factor could possibly have affected American tourism to France in the year 2003 that’s missing from that list? What about the widespread American frustration with France for opposing the liberation of Iraq — even as we learned of President Chirac’s friendship with Saddam Hussein and of French oil giant TotalFinaElf’s lucrative agreements to develop major Iraqi oil fields? Remember the New York Post front page depicting Mr. Chirac as a weasel? Remember “freedom fries”?
News of the heat wave and wildfires did spread around America last year, but if there was one image of France that kept popping up in the first five minutes of the nightly news, it was of that moralistic pacifist, Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin, attempting to undermine American efforts to make Mr. Hussein comply with the mandates of the United Nations. And of attacks on Jewish synagogues and, for that matter, Jewish school children.
How do we know it was French foreign policy and not exchange rates that affected American tourism to France? Consider the fact that while American tourism to France declined dramatically between 2002 and 2003, American tourism to Italy — which supported America in the runup to the war — went up, as did travel to steadfast American friend Poland — which soared 6.3%.
And how to explain the fact that over the same period, merchandise imports from France to America rose just 2.8%, compared to a 4.7% increase for Italian goods and a 20% increase for Polish goods? Polish wine and cheese may be hard to find. But the Polish people are learning something that the French government and the New York Times apparently fail to understand — that the American people know and remember who their friends are.
