Good hunting, France. I've made my share of "cheese-eating surrender monkey" comments in the past--mostly over their failure to help us in Iraq--but they are an ally. And their military is of good quality. They'll kill some people who need to be killed.
Yippie ki-yay, jihadis.
UPDATE: I was perhaps too hasty in granting France status in the top tier of militarily capable nations:
Several years ago, military readiness documents were leaked to the media, revealing what a lot of people in the military already knew. That is, the French armed forces was largely a hollow shell. Most of the money went to the payroll and procurement, and not enough to maintenance. As a result, half the armored vehicles, and over half the aircraft, were not fit for service. Spare parts, and maintenance personnel were in short supply. This can be most easily seen by comparing how much is spent each year per person in the military. In the United States, it's $350,000. In Britain (which also has maintenance problems), it's $194,000, while in France it was $84,000.
Once, my judgment was true, but I guess the post-Cold War has not been kind over time and their abilities across the conflict spectrum have deterioriated. France has the residual capabilities and traditions to rebuild a top tier military.
We shall see what they do. At least they're not as bad as Belgium.
