United States and France Freedom Liberty

The American and French Revolutions occurred within decades of each other, influenced by similar changes taking place in European society. Concepts of freedom and liberty therefore evolved concurrently within these two societies, in part due to the vibrant interchange of ideas and philosophies. French philosopher Alexis de Tocqueville epitomized the bilateral ideological communications that flowed between France and the United States. In a general sense, French and American concepts of freedom and liberty are similar, deriving from Enlightenment humanism and the concept of a universal moral order divorced from overarching church authority. Concepts like freedom of speech and religion are embedded into the constitutions of these two countries and cultures. French and American republican values also influenced how these two nations would structure their governments in the era of the modern nation-state. As their nations evolved throughout the modern era, though, it became apparent that France and the United States had vastly different ideas of how freedom and liberty would actually play out in daily life, the law, and foreign policy. Both France and the United States have dichotomous and sometimes paradoxical notions of freedom and liberty, evident in their respective domestic and foreign policies. Similarly, both nations also struggle to balance the demands of sensible national governance and national security with the need to preserve fundamental freedoms and liberties.
““Liberty! Equality! Fraternity!” The calling card of the French Revolution could also have encapsulated the American call for independence from the British Brown (“Ideas of the French Revolution” 1). In the eighteenth century, both American and French concepts of freedom and liberty mainly focused on the relationship between the citizen and the state. Whereas individuals did not enjoy freedoms and liberties under monarchic rule, a new model of democratic government was born during the Enlightenment. Enlightenment humanism, and the philosophical legacies of Locke, Hobbes, and Hume, infiltrated the consciousness of nation-builders on both sides of the Atlantic. As the old models of governance and social control moved way for democratic leadership and self-empowerment, both France and the United States pursued their own paths toward freedom and liberty. Both nations also experienced major historical hiccups in the pursuit of a more ideal nation. The Reign of Terror as well as the institution of slavery in the United States showed how each of these two nations struggled with how to practically resolve their dueling desires for freedom on the one hand, and political expediency on the other. Gender parity has been another issue impeding freedom in both France and the United States. Until recently, women did not enjoy the powers and privileges afforded to male citizens, and could not be considered free or liberated. France did not practice slavery like the United States, though, which tried to reconcile the distorted concept of “freedom” espoused by racist Southerners with the concept of universal human rights.
When de Toqueville visited the young United States in the early nineteenth century, he provided posterity with the first major cross-cultural analysis of the differences between America and France in terms of their political philosophies. De Toqueville was struck by the contrasts in American society between “defiant individualism” and “sleepless communitarianism,” and warned Americans and French readers alike of the dangers of “stifling conformism, the tyranny of the majority, the soft despotism of modern equality,” (Wood 1). American anti-federalists eschewed any centralized government for fear of falling backwards into absolutism, and it would seem that the Reign of Terror in France proved their point. At the same time, American mistrust of government has repeatedly led to problems like the perpetuation of slavery, and the tyranny of a majority that is uneducated and ill equipped to conceptualize good government.
Thus, one point major divergence between French and American concepts of freedom has been with regards to the role and function of government. Americans have perpetually struggled to reconcile the desire for good government and strong national security with the desire for unfettered freedom. Whereas the French have acknowledged the necessity to restrict some types of freedoms for the common good, the concept of common good often seems lost upon Americans. De Tocqueville had noted that Americans seemed overly religious, something that has led to an overt attempt to restrict the freedoms of others (Wood 1). Religious Americans are hell-bent on restricting the freedoms and liberties of other Americans in a supreme display of frustrating hypocrisy. Freedom of religion means that the government has no right to impose a state religion on the people, and yet conservative Americans want to hijack the state by presuming moral control over women’s bodies. The French have zero tolerance for such shenanigans, and more firmly avows the separation of Church and State. France also views reproductive freedoms as being inherent to promoting universal rights.
At the same time, the French have also had a recent history of unnecessarily impinging on freedoms—the most notable example being the anti-burqa laws. Anti-burqa laws and other Islamophobic tendencies in French society may be related more to the fact that France is only now contending with how to reconcile French nationalism with multiculturalism. The United States and France both occasionally struggle with how to ensure freedom of speech without condoning hate speech. Naylor also notes that since September 11, the American government “has created a plethora of new laws and institutions severely restricting our freedom and civil liberties while pretending to protect us from Islamic terrorists,” (1). Those laws include the Patriot Act, which had curtailed some freedoms and liberties in the nation in the name of national security. The United States has no anti-burqa laws but like France, does restrict freedom and liberties in significant ways. France has also reacted to terrorism by restricting freedoms, using similar measures like increasing surveillance and monitoring immigrant populations, and fomenting anti-immigrant sentiments (Freedom House 1). Therefore, the concepts of freedom and liberty are viewed as relative in both countries. It is impossible to truly have freedom without also enjoying national security, in the same way both countries use rule of law to mitigate criminality.
The French have historically supported labor rights and social justice more comprehensively than the Americans, who somehow fail to understand how wealth and power disparities limit freedoms rather than represent them. American lack of support for labor movements extends from its anti-communist ideology. Whereas France has welcome several socialist policies and programs as a matter of course, Americans are much slower to embrace government spending on social services. The backlash against Obamacare, which is actually a compromised half measure and not fully universalized healthcare, proves how Americans do not trust the government to manage healthcare. Americans view government interventions into healthcare and other decision-making processes as being infringements on personal liberties. The French do not view social services as infringements on personal liberties. In fact, the French hold the opposite view, believing that social services enhance personal liberties by improving overall quality of life. Universal healthcare can be construed as promoting personal liberty in the sense that it extends affordable and accessible healthcare to all citizens.
France has had its own issues, though, particularly as it struggles to create a new national identity in a multicultural era. The United States has been multicultural for practically all of its history, and has at least been able to create a national identity that is based on diversity. France’s anti-Muslim sentiments, although not unparalleled in the States, have led to a dilution of the “liberte, equalite, fraternite” concept (Williamson 8). Like France, the United States also throws about its catch phrases like “liberty and justice for all,” more as nationalist propaganda than a meaningful display of human rights. As Foner points out, Americans are willing to wage wars under the banner of “freedom,” (1). France has had its fair share of colonialism and interventionism, but more recently seems committed to a policy of neutrality in its foreign affairs. Even the United States, spurned by its terrible legacy in Afghanistan and Iraq, has been less interventionist in its approach to the desire to spread freedom and liberty. Unlike France, America likes to proselytize, viewing freedom and liberty almost from a religious standpoint.
Both France and the United States have at some point, and to a degree continue to, limit the freedoms and liberties of some people in the society. “Liberty thus began in America with a peculiar mix of religious, ethnic, political, economic, and legal associations, all of them based on denying civil, religious, and economic liberty to others,” (Haefeli 1). Slavery was the most extreme of these instances in which the United States government restricted freedom and liberty on the basis of race, something that never happened in France. In France, limiting freedom and liberty started initially with a bourgeoisie belief in the fundamental superiority of the educated elite (“The Ideas of the French Revolution,” 1). De Toqueville seemed to intuit the problems with American hypocrisy when he stated, “If America ever experiences great revolutions, they will be brought on by the presence of Blacks on the soil of the United States,” (Goldhammer 1). Even after the Civil War, the United States continued to restrict the freedom of African Americans, undermining the moral superiority that the nation had claimed, and continues to presume. France has no record of deliberately restricting the rights and freedoms of others based on race, although Islamophobia has led to some policies that come dangerously close to doing so.
In fact, there are a slew of ways most Americans have fewer freedoms and liberties in their daily lives versus the French. American anti-government sentiments have led to problems like slavery and pernicious racism and ignorance, which naturally restrict freedom. Moreover, American anti-government sentiments have led to an erosion of fundamental rights and freedoms that French people enjoy including the right to universal health care and to other quality of life measures like government-paid child care services and other benefits for workers. Employees have very few rights and freedoms in America versus their counterparts in France (Eskow 1). Americans leave their freedoms and liberties behind when they enable neoliberal policies to deregulate businesses. Instead of ensuring universal norms of equality through the government, Americans have turned their will and power over to profit-driven corporate interests on an unprecedented scale. To some degree, France also has embraced the neoliberal tendencies that have dominated global governance. Therefore, the primary points of divergence between the United States and France regarding freedom and liberty are related to the role and function of government. The French mentality views government as an institution in the service of the public, with a strict responsibility to promote public welfare and the common good. Americans favor the rigid, rugged individualism. Americans believe that freedom and government are antagonistic, whereas the French view government as the preserver of freedoms. The French view occasionally restricts certain freedoms that Americans take for granted, while making other freedoms—notably reproductive rights—sacrosanct.
Both the United States and France have a fairly good record of recognizing freedoms and liberties through anti-discrimination policies. One of the most interesting differences between France and the United States is regarding freedom of religion. Just as de Tocqueville noted, Americans are profoundly religious and this religiosity does seem to conflict with the notion of freedom overall. France has taken the opposite path, becoming almost anti-religious in its government policies. As the Freedom House points out, France has laws banning “ostentatious” religious symbols in schools, the same laws that enable the anti-burqa policies. Religious freedom is held dear in the United States, and anti-discrimination policies would preclude the banning of burqas. American history reveals why religious freedoms are viewed as more important than they are in France, with the American mythos centering on the notion that the pilgrims sought freedom from religious persecution. In fact, the puritans were religious fundamentalists who seek the right to freely shun reason. France takes a more decisive stance against religion because it recognizes what an overbearing religious authority can do to restrict the rights and freedoms of the people. In France, religious freedom means freedom to not have religion being shoved down the throats of people. In the United States, religious freedom means that Christians have the right to shove their religions down the throats of others as long as the government is not doing the shoving.
Both the United States and France promote freedom of speech and freedom of assembly, albeit with some restrictions on those freedoms in the interests of public safety. For example, law enforcement personnel in both countries will attend large-scale demonstrations. Neither country condones hate speech, even though Islamophobic speech seems to have a greater degree of tolerance than other types in both countries (Freedom House 1). Generally, the governments of both France and the United States restrict freedoms and liberties in the interests of national security. Freedom of speech is protected but can be controversial in both France and the United States, evident in the ways that Colin Kapernick’s actions have been met with a mixture of deep admiration and resentment by Americans who fail to recognize the power of free speech to inspire social justice movements. In spite of the media controversy, though, the protests do reveal the importance of free speech in American public life. France and the United States also promote a strong free press, the backbone of any democracy.
Both America and France have a conflicted relationship with freedom and liberty. The French mindset is more willing to surrender specific freedoms in order to promote the common good or to ascribe to a universal norm. Americans are also willing to surrender freedoms and liberties due to fear of big government. In fact, the organization Freedom House ranks France and the United States almost equally on various measures such as political rights and civil liberties, personal autonomy and individual rights, and associational and organizational rights. These similarities do not overshadow the cultural differences that do lead to different domestic and foreign policies, but hearken back to the common origins of their respective political philosophies. Although there are some major weaknesses in how freedoms and liberties are protected in France and the United States, these are two countries that share in common a deep belief in the value of freedom and liberty. France gave the Statue of Liberty to the United States, a telling sign of these two nation’s mutual commitment to preserving rights, freedoms, and liberties through their domestic policies.






Works Cited

Eskow, Richard. “Ten Ways Americans Have Lost Their Freedom.” Salon. 2012. https://www.salon.com/2012/08/31/ten_ways_americans_have_lost_their_freedom/
Foner, Eric. “The Contested History of American Freedom.” Historical Society of Pennsylvania. https://digitalhistory.hsp.org/pafrm/essay/contested-history-american-freedom
Freedom House. https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/2016/france
Goldhammer, Arthur. “What Would Alexis de Tocqueville Have Made of the 2016 US Presidential Election?” The Nation. 28 Sept, 2016. https://www.thenation.com/article/what-would-have-alexis-de-tocqueville-have-made-of-the-2016-us-presidential-election/
Haefeli, Evan. “Liberty, Diversity, and Slavery: The Beginnings of American Freedom.” Historical Society of Pennsylvania. https://digitalhistory.hsp.org/pafrm/essay/liberty-diversity-and-slavery-beginnings-american-freedom
“The Ideas of the French Revolution.” Alpha History. http://alphahistory.com/frenchrevolution/revolutionary-ideas/
Naylor, Thomas N. “Freedom, Equality, Justice, and Liberty Forever.” Second Vermont Republic. http://vermontrepublic.org/freedom-equality-justice-and-liberty-forever/
Williamson, Lucy. “What do liberty, equality, fraternity mean to France now?” BBC. 14 July 2016. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-36775634
Wood, James. “Tocqueville in America.” The New Yorker, 17 May, 2010. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2010/05/17/tocqueville-in-america