Actually, since I was born, the French have a better military track record than the Americans.
The French withdrew from Algeria, and from Beirut.
The Americans also withdrew from Beirut after the same incident, and the Americans withdrew from Vietnam.
The American-sponsored invasion of Cuba was defeated.
The Americans withdrew from Mogadishu.
The Americans withdrew in disorder from their disastrous mission into Iran.
I don't look back over my lifetime and see a series of glorious American victories and French humiliations. I see a series of American humiliations and few French committments of force. Where they HAVE committed force, as in the Gulf War, or in Afghanistan today, or in various regime-stabilization efforts in Africa, or in New Caledonia and even Corsica, I see the French has having prevailed.
The Fifth Republic began in 1958. Since then, France has withdrawn from Algeria (because Algeria was a mistake in the first place) and withdrawn from Beirut at about the same time the Americans did. Where have the other defeats and disasters or surrenders of the Fifth Republic been? They haven't been. Different system. Different government. More capable than the governments of old.
But unfortunately nothing we can do will stave off the eventual French surrender to their own Islamists (primarily Algerians), whom they foolishly thought would assimilate and become French -- an incurable/terminal mistake.
C’est la vie, no?