Re: French have been mostly pro-American
I don't really understand what you mean by France allying itself with the Arab world. Most Arab governments' closest ally is the US - all the Gulf States, Egypt, Morroco, Saudi etc. Syria and Libya are exceptions, and Saddam's Iraq is gone. Do you mean the Arab "street"?
Most European countries have large Muslim populations, (though largely sub-continental rather than Arabic in the UK). There are certainly problems resultng from the fact that they tend to be stuck at the bottom of the economic pile, but they aren't particularly different from the sorts of social problems the US has ghettoised Hispanic populations, for example. Poorly managed immigration always causes social ills; and it usually is poorly managed. The idea that it's because they're Muslim is absurd - most of them have little or no interest in religion, in line with most young European people.
France may or may not want to lead the EU, but c'mon; the US wants to lead not only NAFTA but the whole "free" world. The Bush administration openly states that it wants America to remain an unchallenged superpower and to shape the rest of the world in its image. France was pretty far from being the only country to disagree with the US over Iraq; don't you think there's a chance it did it for other reasons, good or bad, than just opposing the US "on principle"?
You know, dear M, one of these days I'm going to convert to Islam just to see what you have to say...
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