My volunteer French bashing.
Throughout most of history, France has pursued nothing but its own narrow self interest. They just aren’t very good at it.
AND
Being French and overtly arrogant as a people and culture, they don’t waste time or energy putting sanctimonious moral lipstick on their foreign policy pigs.
Unlike the Anglo powers, the French do not kill strange little people in backwater locales under some pretense like “spreading rule of law”, or “building democracy”.
The French do it for oil, gas, gold, spice, minerals, ores, land and trade.....of course, their honor may be besmirched as a pretense....but there seems always much oil, gas, gold, spice, minerals, ores, land and trade that balms their wounded ego.
It is said, the French possess all the efficiency of the Greeks, the humility of the Germans, the level headed logic of the Spanish, and mix it with the military prowess of the Italians.
Of course, even with that, they should have no trouble with the Arabs. The Arabs are one of the few cultures that bathe less, posture more, and flee faster from a stand-up fight than even the modern French.
But that is just my opinion, and what do I know.
That’s gonna leave a mark.