Ah, I do just love it (mostly!) when you are angry.

I'll actually give this board the highest points for discussing matters of national politics on a very congenial level. I think it mostly works because there's a general agreement to be a little self-deprecating when it comes to the faults of people's own countries. Still, it can be a dicey proposition -- almost as hard as discussing pizza (and stuff that *pretends* to be pizza which it ain't!).

France, well there's a lot of history there, not all of it glorious (like whose is?) and I'll confess that I was completely ticked off at them --scratched off my vacation list for some years -- for the gratuitous and pointless resumption of nuke testing in the South Pacific some years ago (We are France! We must do what we must do!) . In the end though, I remind myself that the government is not the people, and all governments/people live in some sort of glass hour. Even though I don't find their stance on some stuff admirable (such as what you point out) I've almost come to value countries that act as a nagging buzz in our (meaning the U.S.') ear. What would it be like if every country was in 100% agreement to invade X, Y, and Z? (I know, some might consider that a good thing! -- by the way, anybody see the joke mail "AXIS of JUST-AS-EVIL"?)

In the end, I dropped my post-nuke-testing boycott. I may even buy a Zodiac inflatable dinghy! And I'll visit this June for the bread, the wine, the cheese, the duck, the trains, the beaches, the women (half my age and completely unaware of my existence, of course!), the coffee, the lamb, the pate, the highways....

"Your mother was a hamster and your father smelled like elderberries!"