French Position on U.S. Bombing Raid on Libya

This is a letter from an average French citizen and I hope that you will publish it so that many Americans get my message.

I just saw on the National Television News in France that in some places in America, people were burning a French flag and other French items and advising Americans to ban our airspace by not going to France as tourists.

I want them to know that I and about 45% of the French people disapprove of our government’s action.

Americans should know that there were anti-American demonstrations in Germany, Italy and even England but none in France.

Why? Probably because we are ashamed! Yes with “friends like us, you don’t need enemies . . .” But I am truly convinced that in case of a world confrontation, my country would still be on America’s side.

To try to explain my government’s attitude, I want to remind you of all the French hostages in Lebanon, and that Premier Jacques Chirac, despite being pro-American (it’s well known in France), has to get along with a Socialist president . . . that we prevented recently a bombing at the U.S. Embassy in Paris, that we expelled several Libyan diplomats, etc.

I know all this is not enough to explain our “cowardice.”

American people, believe me, there is always one place where you will always be welcome, it’s Normandy where I am from. People like my parents haven’t forgotten that they owe their freedom from the Germans to you, to those poor boys buried now all over Normandy.

One Normandy politician, Jean Lecanuet, was not afraid to speak up on French television after the bombing of Tripoli to say that he disapproved the denial of the government to let American airplanes fly over French territory.

Kadafi is, yes, a “Mad Dog!”

Bravo, President Reagan.

DANIELLE S. DUBOSCQ

Evreux, France