France's historical legacy is also important. Colonial control of Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Syria, and Lebanon has marked the French psyche. France occupied Algeria for more than 130 years, withdrawing only after an eight-year war, which cost at least 300,000 Algerian and 20,000 French lives.[8] Upon Algerian independence in 1962, more than one million French residents of Algeria returned to France; many had been there for generations, and some had intermarried with the Arab and Berber population. As the various French colonies and mandates achieved independence, Parisian politicians had trouble letting go. Today, French officials act as if they never lost their empire. The Quay d'Orsay, where the Foreign Ministry is housed, for example, continues to promote the Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie (International Francophone Organization), of which fifteen out of forty-nine states are Muslim, as a way to bolster the community and cohesion of former French colonies. Under Chirac, French policy has gone beyond special treatment for the French-speaking Middle East, though, and embraced even the most rejectionist Arab and Islamic regimes while simultaneously working to criticize and isolate Israel, oppose the war on terrorism, and undercut the emphasis on democratization.
http://www.meforum.org/article/772
I could be wrong...but this (I believe) is a replay of the same battles, the same fight for the same principles. Islam has grown. But I believe this will awaken the Christendom in the French blood.
Am I too romantic regarding this matter...we are about to see. But the defenders of Christendom in France will not be Chirac or de Villepin.