If so, I will try to carry the "with the exception of the French Foreign Legion," disclaimer whenever I ridicule France. 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.
Couldn't agree more re:the professionalism of the Legion Etrangere and certain Para groups of the overseas French military. Excellent troopies; well trained and experienced on the sharp end of the stick. However, your comment re:RANGERS bivvied on the ramp at Hunter Field polishing their boots as if they preferred that to a rescue mission was quite out of line. I was a RANGER in 1978, and while aware, very aware, of the goings on in Africa, we had no orders to put any unit boots on the ground for any reason. Of course there was the odd business in Angola and other parts, things like that. By the by, I found myself in Liberia helping with an evacuation in 1986(5?). Things had gone south there and there were executions on the beach front. Private group I was with evac'ed a number of civilians out of there.
Also wanted to say that the links from yr profile page are most excellent. Where did that last verse of VBL come from? RLTW