[CaptainMattJ.]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

I've always loved the French "surrender" jokes, but I've never fallen for the stereotype. It's easy to point out the times that French politicians have surrendered, leaving the French soldiers and people hanging out to dry.

The French are cool.

Absolutely agree. The French have a very long history of being hardcore and fantastic fighters.

The settlers in france helped sack the Romans, and for hundreds of years have taught the British a thing or two about getting whooped, even if the french never did successfully invade the isles. The french damn near conquered europe with napoleon, and played a critical role in America's independence, and did the bear's share of the fighting (and dying) in western europe in WW1. In WW2, not only the french, but the british as well were caught completely by surprise with not only the location of the spearhead into france, but the speed and ferocity. Neither country could respond fast enough nor organize fast enough to keep from getting surrounded, and subsequently were forced to retreat across the channel or risk the loss of hundreds of thousands of troops. It was the only sensible thing to do really, surrender, as the french had no chance of winning after dunkirk against the germans, and continued open resistance would most likely result in unnecessary death and destruction, so france surrendered.

It wasn't surprising to me when the french started to show their potential in Mali. The french not only have an extremely capable military, but they also have the third largest out of all western European countries (300,000 active and reservist personnel), making them a potent fighting force.