The French have been there when the US needed it and at times it is the French who could claim that it was the US who wasn't.

For starters, the US likely would have come into fruition much differently--more akin to gradual paper independence in a British Commonwealth with the official British monarch as its figurehead like Canada, Australia, New Zealand, etc--had the French not given key financial and military assistance to the US in its bid for independence from 1776 until the Treaty of Paris in 1783 where Britain formally recognised it. It was their help that gave the money and the naval and military muscle to help accomplish the independence. The odds are that it would have failed without their assistance.

A US/French monument at Yorktown.

France was allied with the US on many ventures. It was allied with France in both world wars. Whilst the US often claims that it liberated France in WWII, it had assistance in that from other allies.

Moreover, at the beginning of the war, it was France and Britain that declared war on Nazi Germany whilst the US opted for neutrality. Even after Germany had overrun both western and eastern Europe, the US still remained neutral. It was only after Germany declared war on the US--not the other way around--two days following Pearl Harbor that the US got into the war in Europe.

As for the often-stated allegations that the French were cowards in that fight that was not mentioned in your post, almost no military was prepared for the German and Japanese military machines early in the war. France did not have the live-saving water barriers that the UK and US had. Given the poor military state of the British military at the time compared to the Germans, it is widely acknowledged that the Germans would have also rapidly overrun Britain had the English Channel not provided the critical water barrier to the blitzkrieg machine. Certainly the Germans badly routed the British and their Commonwealth allies on the Continent up through their chaotic evacuation at Dunkirk. The Atlantic and Pacific Oceans protected the US from both Germany and Japan. The American military was a small force until the nation mobilised following Pearl Harbor, and Japan certainly grabbed much of the Pacific, including American possessions, until the US could mobilise and build up to fight back.

France fought with the US in Gulf War I and quickly supported the US following 9.11 and sent troops to Afghanistan.



France could claim that it was the US who was late to Yugoslavia and have ditched UN actions and other international operations where it participated.

As for Iraq now, France was supporting the UN inspections that were showing that the WMD was not there and Saddam was complying. Bush ordered the UN inspectors out before they could conclude their inspections, but they were well along in them and were stating that Iraq did not have them. As it turns out, the US claims that there were WMD in Iraq were not true and the post-war planning was abysmally optimistic and/or poorly planned.

Given all of the above, I just cannot see why France deserves being called a bad ally by having made the right conclusions on Saddam's WMD threat and for not being so gung-ho for a war based upon wrong assessments and shoddy planning. This also discredited the judgment of the most powerful ally in the coalition that was not there beforehand given sympathies resides with the US and her allies following 9.11. Had Bush waited for the UN inspections to have concluded, it would have been shown that Saddam did not have the WMD, and allied resources could have been used elsewhere first such as Afghanistan and other threatres posing more immediate threats that are now taking advantage of the misallocation and mishaps.