It was three years ago my father remarked to me about how similar the French and Americans are. I balked-- laughing to myself at the absurdity of such a statement and thinking back to my home in small town Baltimore, where I could imagine many of my neighbors cringing at the comment.
When I mentioned in passing to my friends' father that my dad called France home he said, "I'm sorry to hear that."
We laughed, drunk on American pride.
But now, as I read an article concerning the man who overzealously jumped to his wife's defense when asked to remove her burka during a routine identity check, and unnecessarily began to strangle the officer, I am reminded of the law passed in 2004 banning the wearing of religious medallions in public schools.
An intention of separation of church and state, not much different from the American model. A separation that did not seem to apply to the catholic girls who wore crosses to school in France, or the use of our, "One nation under God" in the pledge of alliegence.
In fact, our pompous American pride in that moment doesn't seem too alien to that of the stereotypical French one.
As I think more on it, I wonder if the dislike between these two countries is in fact just a clashing of pride. Too stubborn to admit that our foreign enemies may just be a mirror image.
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