All I know is that in the last century, the French fields were irrigated by the blood of Americans simply because the French were too lazy to get off their asses and defend their own country.
Dude, I am no Francophile and certainly no fan of modern France, but I am a careful student of history, especially World War II history, and calling the French soldier lazy is not correct.
At the time of the Nazi invasion in 1940, the French soldier was ill-trained and ill-motivated to fight because of the French leadership, in both the military and in the capital. The head of government changed several times in the leadup to the German invasion, including the night before the invasion, and the head of the military was an old man who was questionably senile. The French soldier was well-equipped -- not as well as the Germans, but equipped well enough to cause the Germans a lot of problems -- but it was all squandered because of horrible leadership and a predictable and fixed defensive strategy. The French soldier was not trained to fight for his country in 1940.
It was Napoleon who said there are no bad soldiers, only bad leaders. That was ever so true in 1940. Had Napoleon been alive he would have been shocked at the behavior of the great-grandsons of the men he led in the 1800s.
Incidentally, I have had some rip-roaring arguments here in FR taking the other side, meaning your side. One fellow said that the French soldier acquitted himself well in 1940. I told him that, his leadership notwithstanding, there are virtually no examples of French heroism during the German invasion.
I especially remember that one anecdote where the French soldiers were walking off the Maginot Line, because the Germans had already leaped behind them and cut off the supply lines. The soldiers were walking back to home and hearth, dejected. One platoon saw a German tank and walked over to surrender. 50 men surrendering to a tank crew, maybe 5 men. The German officer ordered the French poilus to put their rifles in a pile, ran over the pile several times with the tank tread, and then continued on toward the coast. Talk about cowardice. At the least the soldiers should have hid and brought their weapons home for a future fight.
I think the French acquitted themselves well, eventually, during the Resistance. Many men and women, some in their early teens, risked their lives and lost their lives committing sabotage, rescuing downed airmen, and gathering information about the German order of battle in the leadup to D-Day.
Had the French fought the Germans, Hitler might well have not had the hubris to invade the Soviet Union the following year. Think about that for a minute.