we’ll always have paris We’ll Always Have Paris american tourists in france since 1930 harvey levenstein The University of Chicago Press Chicago and London F harvey levensteinis professor emeritus of history at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario. He is the author of a number of books, including Revolution at the Table; Paradox of Plenty; and Seductive Journey: American Tourists in France from Jefferson to the Jazz Age,the first volume of the two-volume study of American tourists in France, published by the University of Chicago Press. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637 The University of Chicago Press, Ltd., London © 2004by The University of Chicago Press All rights reserved. Published 2004 Printed in the United States of America 13121110090807060504 12345 isbn: 0-226-47378-3(cloth) Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Levenstein, Harvey A., 1938– We’ll always have Paris : American tourists in France since 1930/Harvey Levenstein. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. isbn0-226-47378-3(alk. paper) 1. Americans—France—History—20th century. 2. Tourism—France—History—20th century. 3. France—Foreign public opinion, American. 4. United States—Foreign pub- lic opinion, French. 5. National characteristics, French. 6. National characteristics, American. 7. France—Social life and customs—20th century. I. Title. DC34.5.A44L492004 914.404′81′08913—dc22 2004003493 øThe paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ansiz39.48-1992. For Mona contents Preface ix 1 great depression follies one It Sometimes Rains in Nice 3 two The Return of the Middle Classes 25 three “Beautiful Beyond Belief”: Cultural Tourism Survives 41 four Watching the World Go By 54 2 war and revival five Martial Visitors 73 six A Tattered Welcome Mat 94 seven Searching for Sartre 114 eight “Coca-Colonization” and Its Discontents 131 nine “What Country Has So Much to Offer?” 153 ten “Bandwagons Work like Magic in Tourism” 179 3 loving and hating eleven The Worms Turn: 1962–72 203 twelve “This Space Ship Is Going to Paris” 222 thirteen Bouncing Back: The 1980s 241 fourteen Postmodern Tourism 262 fifteen Nobody’s Perfect 277 Abbreviations for Frequently Cited Sources 289 Notes 291 Index 363 preface I sent the completed manuscript of this book to the publisher in April 2003, some days after American troops occupied Baghdad. I kicked myself, of course, for not finishing the book earlier. Not only did it help explain the virulence of the wave of Francophobia prompted by the French refusal to support the United States in this venture; it also showed, I thought, how there was little chance that the crisis would dim the special allure that trav- eling to France has always had for many Americans. My previous book, Seductive Journey: American Tourists in France from Jef- ferson to the Jazz Age,shows how in the nineteenth and early twentieth cen- turies American tourists to France would often return with tales of how the French played fast and loose with morality. World War I saw such negative views reinforced, as many of the over 1million American troops—the so- called doughboys—who served in France returned from there convinced that the French were immoral, dishonest, and ungrateful for their help. The wave of American tourists who flooded into France during the 1920s helped reinforce these convictions as, particularly in Paris, they encountered a host of people who seemed out to cheat them at every turn. In this volumeI show how these ideas, along with disgust over French people’s standards of per- sonal hygiene and their apparent propensity to eat revolting foods, persisted through the Great Depression of the 1930s and blossomed again after World War II. Many GIs returned from France full of unkind stories that were not unlike those of the doughboys, and a new wave of tourists revived many of the complaints of their prewar predecessors. Added to this was the widespread belief that the French were inveterate anti-Americans, a conviction buttressed by such things as French politi- cians’ attacks on Coca-Cola and the appearance of “Yankee Go Home” graffiti on French walls. Although the American media usually linked these to pro-Communism, in fact much of this French anti-Americanism echoed ideas that had arisen in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, long before the rise of the French Communist party.1Indeed, by the 1930s the ix