You can knock the French, but they have sided with US in every War that we ever had.
Look at the Somali debacle? Our men escaped because their ROE were “shoot at anything”. Unlike that rapists ROE.
Where would the US have been if the French hadn’t beat the British at sea during the Revolutionary War. The French have lately gotten a bad rep because they collapsed after the Germans overran the Maginot Line, but really they’re underrated when it comes down to it, and that with the Maginot Line was just appallingly bad contingency planning.
The French have historically been pretty badass overall (ahem - Napoleon, Miracle of the Marne), but of course nobody believes that in the modern era because the Germans overran them in a blitzkrieg. The Germans were fully armed up, fully supported logistically, and up against a country of approximately half the population of Germany. Of course they got beat. Oh, well.