French philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy loves America, and is one of the few French philosophers to take such a position. The Wall Street Journal just published a profile of him, in which he tries to explain his native country’s growing anti-Americanism:

“In France, with the nation based on roots, on the idea of soil, on a common memory . . . the very existence of America is a mystery and a scandal.” This is a particular source of pain, Mr. Lévy says, for “the right.” Contrary to what is thought generally, he insists, anti-Americanism “migrated to the left, to the Communist Party, but its origins are on the extreme right.” America gives the French right “nightmares,” as the country is based on “a social contract. America proves that people can gather at a given moment and decide to form a nation, even if they come from different places.” The “ghost that has haunted Europe for two centuries"—and which gives fuel, to this day, to anti-Americanism there—"is America’s coming together as an act of will, of creed. It shows that there is an alternative to organic nations.”

Amerophile Lévy will sit down for a conversation with Francophile New Yorker editor Adam Gopnik here this Sunday, January 29.

[Bernard-Henri Lévy on America, France and the Jews: 01/29/06]