Michele Alliot-Marie, the French Minister of Defense who is not sure of the French army's standing in the world, huffs that France will forget nothing about Iraq:

French Defence Minister Michele Alliot-Marie said Thursday that Paris will not forget its divisions with the United States over Iraq, even if everyone had learned to love each other again.

"That everyone loves each other, that is fundamental," she said, when asked if everything was forgiven and forgotten two years after the transatlantic crisis triggered by the Iraq war.

"But that everything be forgotten? No," she said. "I don't think it should be forgotten," she continued.

That's all fine and good in our book. France's position on Iraq was dishonest and perfidious. And that is worth remembering, and remembering with acuity.

But Mdm. Alliot-Marie, the dimmest bulb in the dark Chirac marquee™, spins this out into a fairy tale of the sturdy alliance between America and France:

"I think that in the end these periods of tension are part of our transatlantic relations, and have been for a long time. There have been many of them and I think it is on the contrary our ability to know how to overcome our differences, that we have sometimes, which provides the solidity of our relationship."

Flare for the defense minister: France in the persons of the Chirac crew has loosed the last fastenings of the fairy tale solidity of the American-French relationship.

America of necessity is all about the big picture. And what is France in America's big picture? Not much. A force for mischief, contrary for the sake of contrariety but incapable of mounting a meanful threat. What then, it is fair to ask, is America to France? Everything. The object of her innumerable piques; the measure of her third-rate status, her distant glory; an unwelcome culture she cannot resist; an important but unwelcoming market for French goods; an insuperable force that projects its power at will further impressing France with her own sense of impuissance; and most unbearable of all, the world player that ignores France and dopey French scams.

All that America is, all that America has, all that France imagines America to be and America to have, France openly craves. The ache of her envy is made more so by the imagined injustice of American bounty bestowed on, well, Americans. Big old yahoo Americans instead of smart and stylish Frenchies. Oh! The humanity! Forget nothing!

Indeed. The French only wish they could.

Hello, i'm french and i think the country of France is the best of the world. Indeed we are superior of the other because we have created the declaration of human rights and our story is magnific. so don't critiquate France.
And France won a lot of war during his story, we ha the experience and we don't need usa for existing.

France ‘ready to use nuclear weapons for Germany’

This would afford me no comfort if I were German; France has promised to defend people before (Czechoslovakia, Srebrenica, France, etc.)

France ‘ready to use nuclear weapons for Germany’

Well, hell, Doug, I'm glad they are, because I sure would not want the US to defend Germany. As a matter of fact, I'd be ready to use nuclear weapons on Germany.

M. Patarin,

Welcome to Pave.

You seem to miss the point of the post. It is America that is doing quite nicely without France.

It is nice that you think so highly of your motherland. However, she is far from superior to the world at large as you suggest. Your basis for this claim in the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen ("DRMC") is thin at best. The DRMC is derivative and not original in itself. And it is hardly in force in contemporary France. Some examples:

-- Jack refuses to give an account of his mayoral tenure flouting Article 15, specifically, and Article 6, generally, by hiding behind a presidential immunity that is wholly contrary to the spirit of the DRMC.

-- Laws curtailing criticism of elected officials contradict the letter and spirit of Articles 10 & 11.

-- France's EU project compromises her sovereignty in violation of Article 3.

-- Open and historically persistent anti-Semiticism violates Articles 2 & 16. Unchecked Islamofascism violates Article 16.

As for France winning a lot of wars in the course of her history, she has lost more than she's won, which is why she is where she is today. But isn't France in the love camp? We are under the impression from Jack that France disdains war. Jack believes it never solves anything. Is Jack wrong and France glorious? Or is Jack right and France a disgraced military thug -- where she is not a military failure?

Please don't faint away if you stop by and find us criticizing France. It's what we do here. Here's an idea. Why not give us some solid thinking backed by solid facts why contemporary France is above criticism. Describe to us the peoples she has liberated, the worlds she's visited, enumerate for us her Nobel laureates, describe her economic might, explain to us why "Vote for the crook not the fascist" is the best France can offer her electorate.

We are keen for your instruction.

Regards,
DGB

It is America that is doing quite nicely without France.

So why all the fuss on Pave? ;-)

As for France winning a lot of wars in the course of her history, she has lost more than she's won

Highly speculative, Damian, unless you give us a detailed list of every major wars or smaller conflicts France has been through her 2000 year history starting with the siege of Alesia (lost - one point for you).

Describe to us the peoples she has liberated

Hmmm... The American colonies?

Highly speculative, Damian, unless you give us a detailed list of every major wars or smaller conflicts France has been through her 2000 year history starting with the siege of Alesia (lost - one point for you).

And why, precisely, is it that you shouldn't be the one to do the list-making to support your own contention? Wait - I know. This is the part where you make someone else do all kinds of work, and then ignore the answer, right? Right. As luck would have it, I've already done that list. Since you apparently skipped it the first time, and every subsequent time that it's been linked, here it is again. Perhaps it'll keep you from demanding such a list again for a few more weeks.

58 BC-50 BC - The Roman conquest of Gaul. Lost
406-409 - Lost vs. Vandals
507 - Won vs. Visigoths
772-804 - 18 losses and one win against Saxony.
773 - Lombards. Won
778 - Moorish Spain. Partial victory
791-795 - Bavaria. Won
796 - Avars. Won
799 - Roman rebellion. Won
843 - Vikings. Lost
1095-1099 - First Crusade. Won
1147-1149 - Second Crusade. Lost
????-1187 - England. Both sides abandoned war to pursue third crusade. France was ahead at the time.
1187-1191 - Third Crusade. Was winning, but quit when loss was looming.
1214 - Not really a war, but a won battle at Bouvines which ended a streak of mostly losses, and settled conflict with England for the moment. Should probably count as a win.
1209-1229 - Albigensian Crusade. Lost and won.
1248-1254 - Seventh Crusade. Lost
1270 - Eigth Crusade. Lost
1300 - Siezed Flanders, then lost it
1337-1453 - The Hundred Years' War. Finally won
1494-1529 (or 1559) - The Italian Wars - Defeated in turns by members of the Catholic League
1542-1546 - England. Lost
1549-1550 - England. Won
The French Wars of Religion
1562-1563 - lost
1567-1568 - lost
1568-1570 - lost
1572-1573 - draw
1576 - technically a loss, played out as a draw
1577 - draw
1580 - draw/loss?
1584-1589 - draw/loss?
1589-1598 - draw/won?
1636-1648 - French Intervention in The Thirty Years War. Trounced by Spain, ended in draw at home. Assisted Swedish win in Bavaria.
1667-1668 - War of Devolution. Draw/loss
1672-1678 - Dutch War. Won
1688-1697 - War of the League of Augsburg. Defeat abroad allowed victory at home, which permitted a final draw in the Treaty of Ryswick.
1689-1697 - King William's War. Draw
1702-1713 - Queen Anne's War. Lost
1740-1748 - War of the Austrian Succession. France soundly beaten, France's horse, Prussia, wins.
The Three Carnatic Wars
1746-1748 - Lost
1749-1754 - Lost
1756-1763 - Lost
1748 - King George's War. Lost, draw settlement.
1754-1763 - French and Indian War. Lost
1756-1763 - Seven Years' War. Lost
1702-1713 - War of Spanish Succession. Lost
1778-1783 - American Revolutionry War. Won, or in hockey terms "scored an assist"
1789-1799 - French Revolution. Undecided.
The Napoleonic Wars - a few more shining years of aberration
1792-1797 - Won
1798-1802 - Won vs. Austrians, lost vs. Russians, lost vs. British
1805 - Won
1806-1807 - Won vs. Prussia, draw vs. Russia
1808-1814 (The Peninsular War) - Lost
1809 - Won on land, lost at sea and colonies
1812 - Lost vs. Russia
1813 - Lost vs. Spain, won vs. Austria + Prussia
1815 - Lost
1870-1871 - Franco-Prussian War. Normalcy returns, lost
1914-1918 - WW I. Grinding to a draw, pulls out a win when US scores an assist.
1940-1944 - WW II. Lost
1946-1954 - Indochina War. Lost
1954-1962 - Algerian War of Independance. Lost
1956-1957 - Suez crisis. Lost

Tell me what I missed.

Doug

You missed the war where Haiti's slaves revolted.
And the many times that France stepped on various little African and South American tribes.

I wasn't including interventions, just full-scale wars. Haiti might qualify, I'll have to brush up on it, thanks.

1791-1803 Hatian Revolution. Lost

I can't believe how deficient my education was concerning this conflict. I hadn't before heard of the genocide perpetrated by Leclerc (they name tanks after this guy?!) and Rochambeau, Napoleon's racism, or the unparalleled brutality of French slavery. Given that French slavery was barely in my education at all, however, this is hardly surprising.

Good list, Doug, however it is flawed (more wins as well as losses and I won't go into detail for now).

You conveniently ommit and undermind some key wars:

The battle of Tours (732 AD), where Charles Martel defeated the Moor advance into Western Europe, one of the most significant battles in history. As far as the French Revolution being an undecided outcome, au contraire , Revolutionary France was ripe for the taking with the blessing of England, unfortunately for combined Austrian and Prussian forces against a ragtag revolutionary French army, it failed (see the important battle of Valmy). Enter Napoleon. Your quick dismissal of Napoleon's victories (many while heavily outnumbered) is of course a joke and I won't even bother to list them.

A few more points:

The Algerian war - France actually "won" and could have done more damage, but lost politically. Sounds familiar? As far as Haiti, most of Napoleon's forces (much busier elsewhere) were stricken by yellow fever and not on their best but I give you this one. Finally, your joke regarding the American Revolution is well taken, however it's a technical win (Yorktown and Cheeapeake Bay. England actually surrendered to France, not to the colonies).

Napoleon's racism, or the unparalleled brutality of French slavery.

Napoleon a racist (he had Mamlouk guards, by the way)? Napoleon freed Jews from Egypt, Palestine and Eastern European getthos and offered them French citizenship. It is true that he re-instated the slavery trade for economic reasons but very briefly, in fact abolishing it before England formally did, after his return from Elba. No, Napoleon was a ruthless tyrant if you want, but not a "racist" on the scale of Hitler or some would argue, many prominent "Christian" Americans whose names figure on the declaration of independance...

I wouldn't point the finger too far when it comes to "unparalleled" slavery, Doug, not to mention segregation.

Doug and Damian:
Beautiful post and comments, hats off to you.

"So why all the fuss on Pave? ;-)"

Because it is entertaining. This is usually the reason for visiting blogs. Even you must admit that these threads can be highly entertaining.

As for commenting on French strategic victories, maybe Zoomer could explain to me how retreating from a position of utter and complete dominance, at least territorily, of North America constitutes anything but the loss of a meta war, for lack of a better term.

You are now reduced on this continent to a former colony, made up of lumberjacks and maple syrup cooking snowmobilers who print the Queen of England's likeness on their money.

Zoomer -

I don't recall my reasoning behind each and every one of those, but I did bone up on and assess each one individually. There were actually several wars in that list that were difficult to call, since I did include political success or failure in making a determination. Had I rated victories (or losses) strictly on military performance, the list would look different, but I also weighed how favorable/unfavorable the resolution of the conflict was to France, and whether or not France achieved the objective that it was engaged to accomplish. Algeria, therefore, was a loss. The American revolution was a similar case; France was only peripherally engaged in most of the war, and France's chief gain from the resolution was pressuring and outmanuvering the English. The net gain was an advantage in the conflict at home.

You're right, I offered no analysis of whether wars were exceedingly significant, just what I thought the outcomes to be. Neither did I include border skirmishes, isolated battles, or other low-grade conflicts unless they had some significant outcome, like the 1214 battle; I was just looking for wars. I did miss Tours on this score - it may not have been a war, but it was a very significant victory and should have been included.

I indicated most of the ones that I thought could be argued to be ambiguous with a slash or question mark, but if you think there are others then by all means say so. I called the revolution undecided because I'm genuinely not sure if France can be said to have won or lost. I lumped the Napoleonic wars together because it was difficult to tell where one ended and the next began, or even how many distinct wars there could be said to have been. Maybe if I put a few more days of study into it... but that's way past the amount of effort I'm willing to put in.

The attributions of racism (which does not necessarily encompass every other race, btw) to Napoleon weren't mine; as I said, I hadn't heard that before. However, the policy of simply slaughtering blacks wherever they could be found can't exactly be interpereted as "diversity-friendly". I made no reference to "unparalleled slavery", it was "unparalleled brutality". I'll make no excuses for slave owners in this country, but their practices could hardly be said to hold a candle to those in Haiti. To Napoleon's credit, he seems to have figured out that it should stop before the plantation owners did.

In terms of military engagement you're right, Haiti barely registers as a war for that period (I found a figure of 20,000 French troops engaged, I think that was a total). However, it was for France an exceedingly significant event. Stretched too thinly across the empire, France all but withdrew from the North American continent entirely when faced with the potential loss of a huge profit center, with no small consequences. Present-day France, England, America -- and likely the world -- would look very differently today had France quashed that revolt. I think one could make a firm case that overextending the empire in this fashion was Napoleon's single greatest failure as a leader.

Gene -

Thanks

I hadn't before heard of the genocide perpetrated by Leclerc (they name tanks after this guy?!)

I believe the Char Leclerc is named after General Leclerc (1902-1947)

huh?!
the post above is mine!
and no, I'm not zoomerx -neither schizophrenic!!!

All French people are the same at Pave, goldsoundz ;-)

You're correct about Leclerc, one of the few WW2 French generals with merit worth mentioning (good link). My father knew him while in Indo-China.

Fair post, Doug.

Thanks for the correction on Leclerc, Zoomers. ;) That makes more sense.