I’m very humble about my foreign policy relevance. I do write for the Japanese Foreign Policy journal, but I write about America.

So take it for what it’s worth, very little: The French government is trying to provoke a public statement by American leaders attacking France as “lazy and irrelevant.” This has been a core part of the French strategy of creating an alternate pole in the uni-polar world.

The reason the French government wants to provoke a verbal attack from American leaders is that an American insult to the French is the only way to get the ordinary French citizen to work harder, take shorter vacations, make economic and union reforms.

French popular literature recognizes America as the mega-economy, the monster eating the French lunch. The French hated Disneyland when it opened, hated McDonalds and generally consider America a competitor. Usually America and the American government ignore France, a form of distain.

A public insult from the U.S. would be the kind of recognition that would stimulate a French competitive response.

America should keep quiet about the lazy French.