My three-step analysis.

Step 1 is the foundation of a structural societal fact

European anti-Americanism — and French in particular—is not a conjunctural reaction to the USA-Iran conflict. It is an inherited configuration, which pre-exists any event. In France, it is built on three pillars that reinforce each other: cultural post-Gaullism (the idea that France should weigh as much as Washington), the intellectual third-worldism of the 1960s-1970s, which was never entirely dismantled, a form of anti-liberal reflex in the academic and media elites. It is therefore not an analysis of the conflict—it is a filter prior to any analysis.

Step 2 is a strategic activation: The Iranian narrative manipulation

It would be an analytical error to underestimate the sophistication of Iranian communication in Europe. Tehran has, for decades, cultivated a network of relays: some NGOs, some “peace” think tanks, sympathetic journalists, and alternative media platforms. The Iranian narrative—”we defend our sovereignty in the face of American aggression”—is precisely calibrated to resonate with the European anti-American substrate. This is not crude propaganda: it is soft influence dressed in international law. It works precisely because the ground is prepared.

Step 3 is camouflage: The occultation of military and strategic reality

This phase is where the analysis becomes critical. The convergence of the first two stages produces a significant blind spot: we treat Iran as a structurally victimized actor, without the capacity to act, while it is an expansionist state—proxy networks in Lebanon, Iraq, Yemen, and Gaza—whose nuclear posture is offensive, not defensive.

What is said in Europe—’unilateral American escalation,’ ‘Iranian right to the nuclear program’—introduces a false symmetry between two fundamentally asymmetric actors. It’s analytically untenable.

The French case: The most acute in Europe

Europe must be distinguished from France. Germany is deeply Atlanticist by reflex since 1945. Poland, the Baltic countries, and Scandinavia are clearly in the western camp. France is structurally the “anomaly.” His anti-Americanism is the only one in Western Europe to have intellectual legitimacy—Sartre and Baudrillard all contributed, in one way or another, to manufacturing a posture where criticizing Washington is perceived as a sign of analytical sophistication. President Macron is not outside this tradition—his speech on ‘strategic autonomy’ is the institutionalized version of it.

The three steps coexist, but they are not equivalent. Iranian narrative manipulation would operate without structural anti-Americanism. The latter is the founder’s support. The question is therefore not ‘Is it manipulation or anti-Americanism?’—it’s a poorly asked question. The right question is, why is the European terrain, and French in particular, so sustainably fertile for this manipulation?

The answer: because European anti-Americanism needs a concrete American anti-model to exist. Iran at war with Washington is, for this cultural substratum, a narrative boon—not a reality we are trying to understand.

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)