I'd strongly urge you to include the French army paratroopers, including the Legion paras, and the French Marine Marsouins et bigours in your list of exceptions. And some of the regular French Army tank crews and cavalrymen I've known are no slouches either; neither are their Alpine mountain troops.
Don't mistake the weakness of their politicians for any failings in the ranks of some, perhaps much of the French military, no more than US forces should be judged on the basis of their political leadership during the previous administration.
You're welcome to disagree, of course, particularly if you're one of the Americans rescued by Colonel Erulin's 2 REP paras at Kolwezi in Zaire in May of 1978, while the American Rangers sat on the airstrip ramp at Hunter Airfield polishing their boots. But I think you'll find that those in Liberia now prefer to have their security provided by the French Army to depending on either the mercies of the LURD guerilla rebels... or the Liberian government troops.
