The Europeans have relied on their American allies for too long. They have to shoulder their share of the burden by making a national defence effort commensurate with their ambitions for Nato and also for the EU.

Jack,
president for now of France,
yabbering at the NATO summit in Riga
November 28, 2006 (Guardian)

And France makes a national defense effort commensurate with -- not her over-large ambitions -- but her cozy dependency on America.

FRANCE MAY CUT DEFENCE PROGRAMMES - REPORT

PARIS January 23, 2007 (Reuters) - France could scrap building a second aircraft carrier with Britain as part of sweeping cuts to defence spending, La Tribune newspaper reported on Wednesday, citing a confidential Defence Ministry document.

According to La Tribune, the document says the armed forces need to save 30 billion euros (19.8 billion pounds [USD $39B]) by 2015.

France may also cancel an order for 40 Tiger helicopters, made by Eurocopter.

Aircraft carriers, British built to French spec, are priced at around €3B (compared to the shoddy French-built Charles de Gaulle, which cost £7B+, a staggering €10.6 in today's euros). Voiding the helicopter order saves another €1B.

Of course it's hard to project power afar without an aircraft carrier. It's even harder to project power when there's not much power to project, when the power has no power, or when the power is only for show (and this). And harder still when the projection is a retraction.

France, who openly pronounces herself America's equal, believes she can manage on charm alone without recourse to budget-busting ordnance. Now that is a lot of charm and, to be frank, France is not charming.

PFFT (What is this?): Less defense is thrifty defense 4 | Rayonnement français 0

Opps a quick hit of the enter key there... sorry about that.

Actually it is a good thing that France is cutting its militiary budget. After all we would probably hate an islamic France with too big of a military.