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Hollande's Declaration Of Independence

Decent Essays

In February of 2014, President François Hollande of France and President Obama toured Monticello as part of Hollande’s state visit. In their remarks after the tour, President Obama and President Hollande seek to solidify diplomatic ties between the U.S. and France by assuring listeners that the two countries both strive for the same ideal of human rights. Their remarks refer to the Declaration of Independence and allude to its similarity to the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen to state that the U.S. and France have been, are, and will be united in their mission to protect human rights. Obama and Hollande remind listeners twice that Thomas Jefferson drafted the Declaration of Independence and allude to it by placing these …show more content…

Freedom, as Hollande uses the term here, is a nod to the right of liberty that both the Declaration of Independence and the Rights of the Citizen consider inherent to human beings. Although the words liberty and freedom have different connotations, both words translate to the French word liberté. Thus, even though the translator chooses to interpret liberté as freedom, Hollande still refers to the ideal of liberty espoused in the Declaration of Independence. Human dignity, by definition, is the individual’s sense of self-worth and self-respect. It does not explicitly appear in the Declaration of Independence, but resides in the background of the document. By stating that King George III seeks to force the colonies into submission to his tyranny, the Declaration implies that he is striking at the colonists’ dignity because submitting to him would imply that the colonists cannot adequately govern themselves. The Declaration’s depiction of the colonies’ separation from Britain as a necessity also suggests that staying tied to Britain would mean that the colonists lack self-respect. Failing to do something that one perceives as necessary does not generally merit respect of oneself. The third term Hollande uses, rights, is a general nod to the rights that both declarations consider inseparable from humans. Hollande’s listing of rights that appear in the Declaration of Independence in his assurance that France will continue to align itself with the U.S. connects the Franco-American bond of the past to that of the present and

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