Strolling in bright sunshine across the
immaculately raked gravel of Paris's Tuileries gardens, Barbara and Rick
Wilson from Dallas, Oregon, were not exactly in disguise. But earlier
that morning, on their very first trip to France, Rick, 74, had taken an
unusual precaution.
Before leaving
his hotel, he'd taken a small piece of black tape and covered up the
Stars and Stripes flag on the corner of his baseball cap.
"We're
sick about it. It's horrible. Just horrible," said Rick, as he and his
wife contemplated the sudden sense of shame and embarrassment they said
they now felt, as Americans, following President Trump's abrupt moves on
global trading tariffs.
Barbara, 70,
even had a Canadian lapel pin in her pocket – a gift from another
tourist - which she thought might come in useful if further subterfuge
proved necessary.
"I'm disappointed in our country. We are upset about the tariffs," she explained.
A few yards away, towards the crowds
gathering outside the Louvre Museum, another American couple was also
trying to keep a lower profile than usual. Chris Epps, 56, an attorney
from New York, had decided he would dress a little differently on
today's tour.
"No New York Yankees
hat. I left it in the hotel. People might come up to us, treat us
differently. But so far, so good," he added.
As the world grapples with the
implications of Donald Trump's see-sawing quest to upend the global
trading system, the impacts are being felt not just on stock markets and
businesses and investment funds, but in subtler ways too, and not least
here in France, a country that continues to attract vast numbers of
tourists from North America, and which has a centuries-old, close, and
sometimes testy relationship with the United States.
To
be clear, there are no indications that Americans are any less welcome
here than before. Our interviews with a random selection of tourists
were also carried out shortly before President Trump reversed some of
his tariffs.
Nonetheless, the shock
and anger generated in Europe by events of the past week have added fuel
to perceptions of a much larger transatlantic rift – of a shifting of
the tectonic plates of international relations.
It is early days, of course. Americans are far from united about their government's actions and much of the evidence for changing sentiments is anecdotal.
But there are already some discernible effects on travel, tourism, academia and other fields.
"It's
a big drop," said Philippe Gloaguen, the founder of France's most
prestigious travel guides, Le Guide du Routard, sitting behind a
cluttered desk in Paris and noting that orders for his books about the
US had fallen by 25% so far this year.
Not that Gloaguen was complaining. Quite the opposite, in fact.
"I'm
very proud of my customers. They are young, well-educated, and very
democratic. This was the truth for Putin… and for China. We know when
there's a dictatorship going on in a country," he said, arguing that his
French readers were beginning to view America in a similar light.
"They don't want to spend their money in
the United States," Gloaguen continued, framing his publication as a
sort of global democratic weathervane.
He noted that the abrupt fall in US sales was balanced by a rise in sales of books about "Canada and other countries."
Other
evidence from the travel industry is beginning to back up the idea of a
growing disenchantment with the United States. The forecasting company,
Oxford Economics, is already predicting an 8.9% drop in the number of
French people travelling to the US this year compared with 2024.
Another recent analysis – of French
expatriates living in the US – found that a remarkable 78% of them are
now "particularly pessimistic" about their future in the country, while
73% of people polled within France, in March, believed the US was no
longer an "ally".
Over a morning
coffee in a Parisian café, Nicolas Conquer – an enthusiastic Trump
supporter and dual French-American citizen who leads the Republicans
Abroad Paris branch – acknowledged "some volatility" because of the
tariffs but argued that a "media narrative" was creating a false
impression of strained transatlantic relations.
"I'm still standing my ground...
reminding people that France and the US have been the oldest allies,"
Conquer said, adding that any negative reaction to Trump's America First
agenda was based on a "childish or immature" view of international
relations.
"Everyone knows that we
have to have strong sovereignty, strong patriotism, and that… as Trump
supporters go for 'America First', we would expect that… European
governments would also promote UK first, Germany first, France first,"
said Conquer.
But concern about the Trump
administration's recent actions and rhetoric – not just in relation to
tariffs but also regarding Ukraine and Greenland – is widespread across
France and hard to miss. Politicians, newspapers and television talk
shows have all been busy dissecting the changes, often in a tone of
bitter disillusionment.
In practical
terms, the result has sometimes been to offer support to perceived
victims of the Trump administration, with French scientific
institutions, backed by the French government, beginning to offer places
to American researchers who've lost their jobs due to cuts in
government funding.
Elsewhere there are indications of
nervousness about simply travelling to the US. A prestigious social
studies institute in Paris recently sent its students a warning,
following reports of foreigners being questioned about their political
beliefs and refused entry.
"We urge
you to be extra vigilant when travelling abroad. It is important not to
travel with your usual equipment but to use a shared computer containing
only data necessary for your stay and no sensitive data. During border
checks, some security services may require the unlocking of digital
devices to view information, including private information," wrote a
professor at EHESS, in a group email seen by the BBC.
Relations between Paris and Washington
have survived many previous shocks – as, for instance, American taunts
about "cheese-eating surrender monkeys" following France's decision not
to participate in the 2003 invasion of Iraq, or the more recent spat
over calls to return the Statue of Liberty.
But
France's friendship with the US has never been as unconditionally
"special" as that claimed by, say, the British. The French may adore
Hollywood cinema, country music and the allure of the American Dream,
and celebrate ties that date back to America's war of independence, but
they have kept some distance too - shunning what's known here as "Le
Woke-isme" and, today more than ever, celebrating President De Gaulle's
determination to build an entirely French-owned nuclear deterrent
separate from both Nato and the US.
"The American people remain our friend,
but [Trump] is no longer our ally," the former French President François
Hollande announced recently.
"It's
definitely a relationship of 'love' and not always 'like,'" said Kerry
Halferty-Hardy, the President of the American Club of Paris, citing the
ambivalent lyrics of the famous Serge Gainsbourg song, "Je t'aime - moi
non plus."
Looking out of her Paris
apartment towards the Eiffel Tower, Halferty-Hardy argued that the
shared values of liberty and the Enlightenment linking France and the US
"are not easily dislodged and certainly not on the basis of one
administration," but she acknowledged that "no one can ignore what
they're seeing in the headlines."
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