An Op-ed in the New York Times alleged that the French are dispirited over the loss of their identity. This question of a loss of national identity is nothing to fear but rather the signal that the world is moving into a new age where past identities are giving way to new ones.
For the French and other European nations the identity now is of the European Union despite the problems they are facing with the economic crisis there. For Americans it is the inevitable march from the America we once knew to a new global society where non-Europeans are the majority of the population.
Consider the time after the fall of the Roman Empire when it took centuries for the national identities we now know to come into existence. Most of Europe was part of the Holy Roman Empire for a time and Italy did not unite until the 1800s. Greece was ruled by the Turks two hundred years ago. Spain was a Moorish caliphate up until 1492. In the early 1700s America was just 13 British colonies and the rest of what is now the United States was ruled by France and Spain. In the early 20th Century India was a colonial possession and today it is a rising economic super power as is China.
Sometimes when you are in Europe people refer to you not as Americans but as North Americans. Some even refer to people as Americans whether they come from North, Central or South America.
This is all the new global outlook resembling tectonic plates moving and shifting into a new pattern or shape and is nothing to fear but to admire in awe and wonder.