Originally posted by Yeager
Not with that veto and being a powerful force in the EU they aren't.
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Yes.....France is insignificant. Calirfornia in a severe budget crises has a larger GNP than France. The veto didnt prevent the removal of Hussein, much to french dismay and the EU does not need France nearly as much as France needs the EU.
I guess if you consider the french nuclear arsenal then they have some signifigance militarily but that just doesnt seem to matter much these days.
France is impotent by any other measure.
Nmmm, interesting how the signifiance is related to the diplomatic stance of a government to the US eyes...Let's compare UK and France:
Population
Fr: 60,180,529 (July 2003 est.)
UK:60,094,648 (July 2003 est.)
Birth rate:
Fr: 12.54
UK 10.99
GDP:
Fr: $1.558 trillion (2002 est.)
UK: $1.528 trillion (2002 est.)
Military manpower - fit for military service, males age 15-49::
Fr: 12,079,413 (2003 est.)
UK: 12,353,942 (2003 est.)
Military expenditures - dollar figure
Fr: $46.5 billion (2000)
UK: $31.7 billion (2002)
Nukes (estimations)
Fr: 350
UK: 185 (and they have to ask the US president permission before using them)
Now the RAF is smaller than the Armée de l'Air, the Army is slightly smaller than the Armée de Terre, and the Royal navy is slightly bigger than the Marine Nationale, but will be next year due to budget cuts. The British arms industry also relies on US technologies, while almost all the weapons used in France are French.
So heh, it seems that you also lack of respect for your allies, such as UK... In fact, you don't even respect UK, it's just the country where people drink tea all the time, but they're cool as *****, because they speak English like us, too good we colonized them in 1944 to fight USSR by landing on the beaches of Grenada!