French Exhibition to Commemorate 9/11

MEMENTOS: Keys from the World Trade Center are among the items representing the 2001 attacks to be shown in the French city of Caen.

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Like many Americans, I wasn't pleased with the French pursuit of narrow national self-interests in the run-up to Iraq. On the other hand, I wasn't so pleased with all the French-bashing we saw on this side of the Atlantic in the aftermath.

France, for all it's aspirations to international grandeur and puissance, is one of the world's great nations, with contributions to Western civilization too numerous to recount. French politics veers much too far to the left on occasion, but there's a history and culture to the nation that remains one of the world's most fascinating.

The French people, moreover, do indeed appreciate their centuries-old partnership with America. The strength of those ties seem to wax and wane at times, especially amid periods like the backlash against Iraq, but the fundament's still there, sturdily under the surface.

French respect for the United States will be on display this summer, when a new historical exhibition opens in city of Caen, on the coast of Normandy. The exhibition, "A Global Moment," is covered in today's Los Angeles Times:

On the shores of Normandy where thousands of Americans died in the cataclysm that was D-day, a museum that aims at being more than a collection of rusting relics is preparing to commemorate another day that changed the world: Sept. 11, 2001.

More than 120 mementos, including building keys and a smashed-up vehicle, are being shipped from New York to the French city of Caen for the first exhibition outside the United States, and the largest anywhere on the attack, its roots and aftermath.

That France is playing host to the exhibition might surprise Americans who remember the "freedom fries" uproar that greeted Paris' opposition to the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, which the Bush administration tied to its war on terrorism. But the director of the Caen Memorial, a museum of conflict and peace, said the show would have neither an American nor French take on events surrounding Sept. 11, but rather a global view.

"The people who died in those buildings were from 16 countries and every religion," Director Stephane Grimaldi said. "It was an attack against America. It was an attack against democracy and human rights. We want to tell that story."

The exhibition, titled "A Global Moment," is expected to open June 6 at the museum, which was built to remember those who died on that date in 1944 and in the Battle of Normandy that began with the landings.

Grimaldi said that although the relationship between the French and Americans has been complicated by post-Sept. 11 politics in recent years, museums that try to explain the meaning of war are valuable as a way to discuss peace and shared democratic values.

"The American troops' coming to Normandy to free Europe was a turning point in World War II," he said during an interview in Paris. "While we still don't know the historical significance of 9/11, we know it is a turning point and it is time to begin to understand and explore it together."

Grimaldi said he chose the 9/11 exhibition to mark the 20th anniversary of the French museum because the act of terrorism that day in 2001 is so important to contemporary politics and everyday life around the world.

"The world today is the world of 9/11," he said, "and our museum is here not to be just another collection of things from the past, of old tanks and helmets, but to understand the world of today that is so marked by terrorism."

Read the whole thing.

The article notes the stress of relations surrounding the Iraq war, but notes as well that French President Nicolas Sarkozy 's getting Franco-American relations back on track.

Photo Credit: Los Angeles Times