The French have been petulant for the sake of petulance, uncooperative for the sake of uncooperativeness; Quite a bit like Democrats

Cal Thomas on the election:

After decades of socialist influence in France, could the French election be a precursor to a Margaret Thatcher-like comeback for conservatives? Perhaps. Though, on foreign policy, Sarkozy is more pro-American than his predecessor, Jacques Chirac, he is still opposed to the Iraq War and doesn't want to seem too pro-American since most of the French remain firmly anti-American. But let's not look a gift horse - French or otherwise - in the mouth. Any turn away from policies that have hurt the French economy and threatened its culture with a flood of immigrants who refuse to assimilate is bound to be an improvement.

Bill Murchison on France before the election:

The main point to take away from a discussion of French behavior and attitudes these past few years is the triviality and silliness of despising America and Americans at a time of growing danger to the West.

So the French didn't -- still don't -- like the war. They have plenty in common with moveon.org and Nancy Pelosi. Does that solve the problem of how to address and overcome Islamofascism? Naturally not. If anything, anti-warriors accord Islamofascism a kind of protected status as over and above those working to reproach it or divert it into another channel. Us, I mean. The Americans.

As long as you don't like the Americans, you don't want to imitate them in any particular, including economic, success. You don't want to cut tax rates. You don't want to deregulate. You don't want to resist labor union power, wielded against the people at large.

The French, in other words, or anyway the top leaders they formerly elected, have been petulant for the sake of petulance, uncooperative for the sake of uncooperativeness. Quite a bit like Democrats.

That may be the most striking point here -- the likeness of America's critics in France and, well, in America itself.

… France, prior to the late election, showed little attachment to competitive capitalism, preferring a model run by and responsible to the state -- not wholly unlike those Americans who fret more about "the rich" than about the need to create more of them.