>>>>>That area was French until Napoleon needed money to fight you guys and sold it to the USA in the 1803 Louisiana Purchase.
>>>>>http://earlyamerica.com/earlyamerica/milestones/louisiana/
>>>>
>>>>Man was France DUMB!
>>>
>>>At least they got some money out of the deal. If not for the purchase, we most likely would have eventually driven them out by force. Squandering the money on a war with the UK is another story.
>>
>>Well yeah - dumb on both counts.
>>
>>As for forcing them out, well if France had poured as many settlers into this vast territory as, predominantly, Britain had to the 13 states, who's to say it wouldn't have been the EUF (Etats Unis de France) that drove the 13 back into the Atlantic?
>>
>>Food for thought, mon brave! :-)
>
>Maybe. Just remember France was an ally in those days (Lafayette et al), mainly to spike you guys. And they are not very friendly nowadays either if one is to judge by Chirac's recent comments on British food and British agricultural exports. I must admit they sunded funny (and stupid).

Well it wasn't I who said "If not for the purchase, we most likely would have eventually driven them out by force.", I know they were allies; that was the main reason the US won the War of Independence, helped by French ships. And France wouldn't have been so unfriendly nowadays, given their "special relationship" with their colony (remember we're toying with the idea of France wresting the whole of the US from the original 13 states).

As for Chirac: the US has the right idea in restricting presidents to 2 terms; I think he's becoming a parody of himself. It's always been the French president's job to be stuffy towards us. It was de Gaulle, after accepting our hospitalty during WW II, and our help in liberating France, who said "non" to our joining the EU (then the "Common Market")

The old common misconception that British food is rubbish. Do people think that we go to restaurants to eat "pie and mash"? We have some of the top restaurants in the world and most of us eat Chinese or Indian for a "take-away". A good number of restaurants over here are now also the American imports: e.g. TGI Friday, Fatty Arbuckles, Pizza Hut and, of course, the upside-down yellow "W", so nuff said about that. OK for convenience our kids might get chicken drummers and smiley-face potato things, at home, but I think the States aren't much better on that score. And have you ever been to a French supermarket? they have tins of "cassoulet" - some insipid "stew" with white haricot beans in it. For all their talk of fine eating, they eat french fries by the bucket-load (most ordinary restaurants serve these as the vegetable) and a typical meal might be pate with bread, followed by horse steak and fries. Not all French eat at gourmet places.

Chirac speaks sheer cack.