France occupies an exclusive place in the world, and could accept nothing less. It is, its President declares, a beacon for the human race. The nation and its people may be loved or hated, but they can never be ignored. This, after all, is the land which gave the planet Libert, galit, Fraternit, Charles de Gaulle and Grard Depardieu, the Musketeers, Madame Bovary and Cyrano de Bergerac, Brigitte Bardot and Joan of Arc, claret and the cinema, the Cancan, denim and champagne, the theory of deconstruction and dith Piaf, the Statue of Liberty and the modern totalitarian revolution, liposuction and the vegetable mixer, the sardine can, striped bathing costumes, the Impressionists, disposable razors and babies' feeding bottles. In 1998, its soccer team beat the odds to win the World Cup. Who could ask for anything more from a nation and who could deny its uniqueness? The French have a term for their particular position l'exception franaise. In case anybody should be tempted to miss the point, the country's Head of State had a mother-of-pearl button sewn on his suit jackets to attract the eye when he stood in group photographs with other world leaders. France is central to the future of Europe, and, it sincerely believes, to the globe as a whole. With the fourth biggest economy, nuclear weapons and a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council, it can claim to rank behind only Washington in international reach and ambition. Since General de Gaulle restored the country's faith in itself after 1958, the national psyche has sprouted a self-confidence which is not always becoming, but which leaves no doubt that it offers the rest of the world something out of the ordinary. Not for the French the small opt-outs or grey compromises which satisfy others; they wield vetoes and strut the stage with a panache rare in the late twentieth century. Their vision of history is unabashedly Francocentric. The supreme monarch, Louis XIV, di...
