国际形象扭曲 被误读的法国

The terrorist attacks on France were a shock. The ensuing wave of mostly uninformed foreign opining about France was not. Even more than other countries, France has a distorted internationAl image.

对法国的恐怖袭击令人震惊。随之而来的一波外国人对法国不着边际的评论却并非如此。相对于其他国家，法国的国际形象更为扭曲。

Perversely, that’s because foreigners tend to feel they know France. After all, it’s the world’s most visited country. It used to foist its “civilisation” on other people. It still takes up disproportionate global mindshare. It rejects many international shibboleths on how to run a country. Many foreigners speak a bit of French. So the temptation is to feel that they understand France, and disagree with it. Hence the phenomenon that the French call le French bashing (something at which they themselves excel). I live in Paris and collect misunderstandings about France. Here are a few:

变态的是，造成这种状况的原因是外国人往往觉得自己了解法国。毕竟，法国是世界上游客到访最多的国家。它过去常把自己“文明”强加到其他民族。它在全球意识中仍占有重要一席。它拒绝很多国际上通行的治国套路。许多外国人能说一点儿法语。所以，他们忍不住觉得自己了解法国，但不与其苟同。于是就出现了法国人所称的“敲打法国”现象（其实法国人自己也擅长此道）。住在巴黎的我，收集了一些有关法国的误解。以下列出其中一些：

“France is sliding back into anti-Semitism.”Many French Jews are rightly scared. This month’s murder of four people in the kosher supermarket was only the latest anti-Semitic attack here. But it’s the anti-Semitism of a small jihadi cluster, a tiny minority within French Muslims. Meanwhile mainstream anti-Semitism looks weaker than ever: 89 per cent of French people polled by Pew Research last year expressed positive attitudes towards Jews. France today is neither Vichy nor Eurabia.

“法国正在倒退至反犹太主义。”许多法国犹太人有理由害怕。本月发生在巴黎一家犹太超市的4人被杀事件只是最新一起反犹太袭击。但这是一小撮圣战分子的反犹太主义，他们在法国的穆斯林中只占极少数。与此同时，主流反犹太主义看起来空前虚弱：在皮尤研究中心(Pew Research Centre)去年调查的法国人中，89%表达了对犹太人的积极态度。今天的法国既不是维希政权(Vichy)，也并非“欧拉伯”(Eurabia)。

“France is a museum, stuck in the past.” To the contrary, just before the terrorists attacked, France was having a very creative moment. Fed up with economic stagnation, the French were borrowing ideas from abroad.

“法国是一个博物馆，被钉在过去。”与此相反，在恐怖分子发动袭击前，法国正处在一个很有创造力的时期。受够了经济停滞的法国人，正在从国外借鉴经验。

People across France have become “open to the world”, argues French economist Robin Rivaton. The Pisani-Ferry report, commissioned by the government to set national targets for 2025, obsessively benchmarks France against other countries, notes Helen Drake of Loughborough University. The report’s aspirations — for instance, for France to have 10 “world-class multidisciplinary universities” — reflect the national belief that France should always be number one and cutting-edge.

法国经济学家罗宾•里瓦东(Robin Rivaton)认为，法国人已经开始“对世界开放”。拉夫堡大学(Loughborough University)的海伦•德雷克(Helen Drake)指出，法国政府为了设定2025年国家目标而委托制定的皮萨尼-费里(Pisani-Ferry)报告，念念不忘地将法国与其他国家进行基准对比。报告列出的各项抱负——例如，法国要拥有10所“世界级的综合大学”——反映了一种国民信仰，即法国应该永远是第一，永远站在最前沿。

International thinking is changing France: les start-ups in the tech sector venerate Silicon Valley; restaurant chefs have brought home ideas from stints in the Anglosphere; and, as French schools wonder how to emulate Finland, there’s a national debate about dumping France’s brutal grading system. Or read French novelist Patrick Modiano’s speech accepting the 2014 Nobel Prize for literature: it’s a eulogy to foreign role models from Osip Mandelstam to Alfred Hitchcock.

国际上的思维正在改变法国：法国高科技初创企业膜拜硅谷；餐厅厨师从英语文化圈(Anglosphere)的工作经验带回了创意；而且，在法国学校研究如何模仿芬兰时，该国开展了一场关于取消残酷评分制度的辩论。或者，读一下法国小说家帕特里克•莫迪亚诺(Patrick Modiano)接受2014年诺贝尔文学奖时的演讲稿：那是一篇对外国榜样——从奥斯普•曼德尔斯塔姆(Osip Mandelstam)到阿尔弗雷德•希区柯克(Alfred Hitchcock)——的颂词。

Is France a museum? Economist Jean Tirole just won a Nobel too, Thomas Piketty is changing the global economic debate and on January 11 million marched for freedom of expression.

法国是一个博物馆吗？经济学家让•梯若尔(Jean Tirole)刚刚也获得了诺贝尔奖；托马斯•皮凯蒂(Thomas Piketty)正在改变全球经济辩论；1月11日，数百万人为捍卫言论自由而游行。

“The French reject change because they want to hang on to their privileges.” It’s true that whenever any government timidly proposes a reform, some group shouts it down: farmers, notaries, pilots, trade unions, etc. But these are small privileged interest groups. Only 8 per cent of French workers belong to a union — fewer than in the US. Ever more French people are unprivileged outsiders on temporary contracts. Most of them want change.

“法国人拒绝改变，因为他们想保住自己的特权。”没错，每当政府（无论由谁主政）胆怯地提议一项改革，总会有一些群体强烈抗议：农民、公证员、飞行员以及工会等等。但这些都是小范围的享受特殊待遇的利益集团。只有8%的法国工人加入了工会——比例小于美国。越来越多的法国人签订临时合同，成为享受不到特权的局外人。他们中大多数人希望改变。