Thanks 'FUCKFRANCE!' Loved this one! You said it so well and this is in ode to you!




antifrench: I do enjoy reading Andrew Sullivan a lot. One of my favorite British writers, currently out there. I must have missed this article, but am very happy that you posted it here. Like you said, it was an excellent piece and spoke volumes for how things are when it comes to the French. I just had a few comments to make about the French being our "oldest allies."

Sullivan writes: "In the war of independence, France was America’s key ally against the British. Both republics point to the Enlightenment as their founding influences."

Well, yes and no. Key ally? Which France?

While there's been a single continuous United States (minus problems and seperations before the Civil War started and ended) since 1787, there have been a lot of different Frances. The France of Napoleon was completely different from the France of Louis XVIII, which was different again from the France of the bumbling Louis Napoleon. The France that fought WWI was not the same as Vichy, which was different than the France of De Gaulle (or rather, the Frances of De Gaulle, since there have been two).

The France that aided the American colonies in their struggle against England did not do so because of any love for the Americans; it did so to weaken its biggest political and economic rival in Europe. That was done by Louis XVI, by the way, husband of the famous Marie Antoinette. It was the result of what is probably the most important single piece of diplomacy in the history of our nation, when our ambassador to France, a guy named Ben Franklin, convinced the King to use the French fleet against the British. The victory at Yorktown owes as much to Franklin as it does to Washington, because the French fleet prevented the RN from evacuating the British forces surrounded there and thus permitted Washington to complete his successful siege and win the last major battle of the Revolution and capture the British forces there.

But it's difficult to see just what that has to do with the current French government. The Fourth Republic was established in 1945, and it lasted 12 years. We're on the Fifth Republic, not to mention at least four monarchs, in France since the American Revolution. Given that each of those governments repudiated some or all of the previous ones, the current French government has nothing to do with the one that helped us.

And Chirac is not, shall we say, the spiritual descendant of Lafayette. Not hardly. You're right, France is a "sellout" nation in every way.

Just a thought.