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"Oh well, you cannot instill class and respect unto yobs and hooligans who weren't taught it as children."

Guess not.

Let those who experienced the Blitz, trenches, lice, Burmese jungle, African sands, Gestapo torture chambers and Treblinka camp judge Bomber Harris.

You're right, Leonid. And I certainly didn't mean to trivialise the huge number of Russian soldiers who gave their lives, just in case anyone got that impression. I have the utmost respect for them.

Just realised we're talking about military heroism on the French thread lol. Cheers guys.

Marko

Don't know exactly how and when French lost their spirits...World War I I suppose...

Frenchies were excellent soldiers when they crossed Niemen river eastbound in 1812. It's been fashionable 60 years ago to laugh at Italian soldiers, but in 1812 there were thousands of soldiers from Piedmont in the Grand Army and they were credited by all observes for their skill and valor too.

Russian man has always been a very peculiar kind of a soldier. Brave, strong, with incredible stamina for suffering, but always a slave, never trained well enough, never fed well enough, never taught how to take initiative in his hands.

Adam Zamoyski's book on events of 1812 describes in the smallest detail that Russian officers were lousy too, including Fieldmarshal Kutuzov. Luckily for Russia, he knew better than to challenge Frenchies openly. He was patient enough to let Napoleon's Army starve, lose thousands of horses, lines of communication, freeze to death, disintegrate and eventually abandon the whole silly purposeless conquest.

The French have an excellent military history. They had achieved multiple victories having defeated most important states in Europe at one point of their history or another.

P.S. I can not recall any country in Europe's history not to suffer losses.

And they've had their fair share of defeats too. Probably there was a reason why French mothers were scaring their kids with the Duke of Marlborough's name:)

As I much as I respect a clever man, regardless of his ethinicity, be it Saladin or Richelieu, I couldn't help rejoicing while reading accounts of what the Royal Navy did to Frenchies at Aboukir and Trafalgar.

Here is my personal salute to Thomas Hardy and Horatio Nelson!

Actually, I prefer to enjoy reading about French support of the continental against the red jackets.

Do you really? Then you will certainly enjoy reading this:

Our oldest enemy : a history of America's disastrous relationship with France / John J. Miller & Mark Molesky.

You have my word.

I'll have to hold you to that word.

I'll pick up the book and make own mind on it.

But, it is interesting what critics have said about the book:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/de ... s&n=507846
From Publishers Weekly
National Review reporter Miller (The Unmaking of Americans) and Harvard lecturer Molesky focus quite single-mindedly on destroying what they say is the "myth" of the historical friendship between the United States and France. In doing so, they give short shrift to a few vital facts: for instance, while focusing on the French and Indian massacre of British colonists at Deerfield, Mass., in 1704, they overlook the importance of the French fleet in George Washington's great victory at Yorktown. Miller and Molesky also dismiss French policy as having a cynical underside of national self-interest, willfully overlooking the fact that all governments act out of self-interest. Thus, they call French trade barriers during the Cold War ingratitude for American aid in WWII. They accuse the French, who dare to look down on American culture, of their own "sordid cultural exports," such as the avant-garde, with its strain of nihilism. And, as the authors see it, the French, with the debacle at Dien Bien Phu, are responsible for America's quagmire in Vietnam. As one might guess, driving this revisionism is France's refusal to support the United States in its late invasion of Iraq The authors' ire, and their carefully selected and unnuanced slices of history, will convince only the already converted.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
Lafayette, the Statue of Liberty, D-Day-- such symbolic shorthand for a historical alliance between France and America crumbles in the caustic viewpoint expressed by this historical review of their relationship. Miller, of the conservative National Review,^B and Molesky, a Harvard history lecturer, argue that animosity rather than amity has been the two countries' normal state of affairs, extending from the French and Indian War to the post-World War II pattern of frequent French diplomatic opposition to American foreign policy. The authors reflect on the sources of French anti-Americanism, maintaining it is, in part, because of France's resentment of its own decline as a great power and its cultural contempt for America as crass and materialistic. What may seem like the long-gone past, such as Napoleon III's pro-South policy in the Civil War, is presented as a seamless continuum to the present, representing the French proclivity for hampering the American "hyperpower," as one foreign minister recently called the U.S. Gratifying to a nationalist sensibility, Miller and Molesky's editorialized jaunt through history is fluid and opinionated. Gilbert Taylor
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved


In Our Oldest Enemy, John J. Miller and Mark Molesky will delight some, infuriate others, but whether you agree or disagree, the book is bound to stimulate broad debate about the deeper nature of U.S.-French relations and set the reader thinking. Make sure to put it in your suitcase as you polish off that glass of Merlot and book your summer trip to Provence.”-- Jay Winik, author of April 1865: The Month That Saved America

“In Our Oldest Enemy, John J. Miller and Mark Molesky provide a provocative counterpoint to the dewy-eyed sentimentality that usually surrounds the history of U.S.-France relations. Instead of Lafayette and all that, they write about clashes from the French and Indian Wars, through World War II and Vietnam, and right up to the Iraq War. Sometimes the French have literally fought Americans, as in the little-known Quasi-War of the late eighteenth century. More often, they have tried to curb American influence in peaceful ways while furthering their own ends.”

-- Max Boot, author of The Savage Wars of Peace


“If we grow exasperated at the French and demand gratitude, expect shared purpose, and wish friendship, we will probably grow only more exasperated--since John Miller and Mark Molesky show that French animosities are centuries old and derive from who Americans are rather than from what we do. Their romp through our shared history would almost be funny--if it were not so sad in the present post--9-11 world."

-- Victor Davis Hanson, author of Carnage and Culture and The Western Way of War;
Senior Fellow, The Hoover Institution, Stanford University

P.S. I have to correct myself. During the 1812 War Russian soldiers were fed quite well, unlike French soldiers.

In a battlefield Napoleon was a genius, up until Borodino that is, where he was already lost. In the aftermath of Borodino propaganda on both sides claimed victory, but it was for neither. Probably it was the bloodiest battle in history up until 1915-1916.

Anyway, while Napoleon was wasting his time in Moscow, foolishly believing that Alexander I would beg for peace, Russians were methodically stocking up on foodstuffs, horses, military supplies, etc.

When French soldiers ventured into the Russian open countryside for food, it laid barren.

In logistics Bonaparte was a mediocrity. While in Central Europe, his deficiency wasn't obvious, because he could always play one local potentate against another and buy/loot his way through the densely populated areas. In Russia he was lost.

For one reason or another, one aggressor after another underestimated Russia's persistance and spirit.

In 17th century, it was Ottoman Empire, in 18th it was the Swedes, in 19th it was Bonaparte, in 20th it was Hitler.

Only those nations who knew what they wanted in their struggles (not attempting to overreach) against Russia and would use every advantage possible would stand a chance of defeating Russia. No one could ever hope to defeat Russia strength against strength. That always prolonged the conflict and made Russia dig deep and come up with titanic efforts that only Russia could underwrite.

It's not that simple, never is.

There are always circumstances favoring or disfavoring any potential invader.

Sweden was a scarcely populated country, which had risen to the European prominence for a relatively short historical period of time, due to the European religious and dynastic wars. It couldn't possibly conquer Russia, even if she had won the Battle of Poltava or any other previous battle for that matter.

Napoleon himself didn't know why he invaded Russia...His high temper got the better of his political senses, he was annoyed at Alexander I's persistent attempts to keep Poland for Russia. And Napoleon was constantly frustrated at his failed attempts to humiliate England. Napoleon's continental blockade failed miserably, cause Royal Navy ruled the waves and there was nothing he could do about it.

In Spain Wellington and Spaniards were making occupation miserable for France too.

When Napoleon forced Alexander I to a union against England, Russian merchants suffered and grumbled, it ran absolutely contrary to their best interests.

Anyway, there is no evidence that Napoleon even meant to conquer Russia, the whole enterprise was a foolish folly and a failure, and not necessarily because Russians were so heroic.

Hitler...There is seldom anything inevitable in history. Wehrmacht came perilously close to defeating the Soviet Union completely. And not just because Germans could see Moscow outskirts in their Zeiss binoculars, but because their superiority was overwhelming. Who knows what could have happened if Hitler relegated the overall command to his best generals instead of interfering in their business constantly and making rash decisions. Militarily speaking the siege of Leningrad he could do without and Caucasian onslaught would have been more logical than the capture of Moscow. As it happened, fortunately for the Soviet Union and for the rest of the world, Germans couldn't advance in all directions indefinitely and simultaneously. Classical case of overextension and overreaching as well, so familiar to military historians and analysts throughout history.

Generally speaking, Russia's enormous territory and climate proved a safe graveyard for many invading forces. Russians usually try to downplay such factors, but those are simply a matter of fact. Especially so pertaining to old times when technologies were quite primitive and incapable to deal with Russia's vastness.

Geography is a very important factor indeed, as it has been for so many centuries for Great Britain.

Today people think nothing of crossing the English Channel. Centuries ago it was a formidable challenge, as improbable as it seems now.

Lots of people know the history of the Spanish Armada, fewer people know that it wasn't defeated as much by the combined Anglo-Dutch Fleet as it was dispersed by the terrible weather.

Now let's think for a minute about the old Russian soldier and for the argument's sake avoid talking about his deep Orthodox spirituality and absolute unwavering loyalty to Russian Tsars.

He was a serf, drafted for the military service for 25 years. The odds of him still living after all those years were almost nil. If he wasn't killed in a battle he would die of some sickness or simply of old age, Russians didn't live that long back then. If he was lucky and beat those odds, he would return to his village a very old man, free this time, not a serf anymore. Which would be his greatest misfortune. As a serf he would still be needed by his master owner. As a free man he was penniless, physically broken and morally shattered, unneeded by anyone and practically a stranger in his village, no one would remember him.

As the last defensive line against any potential invader Russian soldier would do what no mercenary in the Western Europe would ever deliver to his paymaster.

And returning back to the possibility of invading and subjugating Russia, Mongols did just that. But as I've said from the very beginning, there were factors favoring Mongols and considering the state of domestic Russian politics, spelling doom for Russia.

Let's also note that Mongols did not deal with Russia per se.

Now, the thing that did Hitler and Napoleon in (one of many, but, in my opinion, very important) is that they thought nothing of Russian military might (or weight) and, what's more important - resilience.

Germans by October 1941 were no longer overwhelming Russians as they were earlier. Even when they went on the last (and - ill advised) all-out strm of Moscow in November, they already did not possess an edge of Russia in any sense. Russians still had huge reserves and Germans were overextended.

The bear always wakes up slow and in a fog. But, gosh dang it, when he does wake up...

P.S. As sparsely as Sweden was populated, they were a great Northern power, which, at that time, also controlled Norway, Denmark, and Schleswig (they also could call upon some other countries due to the familial connections, I do not recall these countries today). Not surprisingly, by the time of Poltava Battle, they knocked both Russian allies - Saxony and Poland.

"Let's also note that Mongols did not deal with Russia per se."

LOL - It's like saying "Napoleon did not deal with the Soviet Union per se".

Semantics. Mongols defeated and subjugated Russian Princes and their principalities, that's all that mattered. They were defeated, forced to pay homage and taxes to the Golden Horde. Just because the "Russia" word came into existence after Mongols were gone, doesn't change the point.

For all I care Swedes might have knocked out half a dozen German principalities, it still doesn't change the point that they lacked necessary resources to conquer Russia.

"I do not recall these countries today"

I don't recall the Soviet Union today, so bloody what? What it has to do with the subject?

Leonid wrote:Semantics. Mongols defeated and subjugated Russian Princes and their principalities, that's all that mattered. They were defeated, forced to pay homage and taxes to the Golden Horde. Just because the "Russia" word came into existence after Mongols were gone, doesn't change the point.

Exactly, a number of Russian princes, not a one coherent state, which will come after removing the Mongol yoke.

Mongols weren't that coherent either and with the passage of time they were becoming even less so, both ethnically and politically, for later there was more than one Horde.

Eugene

You're arguing for the argument's sake again. You're of course perfectly entitled to it, but I believe I made my point. Mongols conquered and subjugated what is now Russia. Whether you call it a loose collection of different principalities or simply a territory which later became known as Russia, is irrelevant. All Russians princes paid their homage to Mongols, none could rule over his territory without explicit Mongol approval, and even the most famous and influential of them - Alexander Nevsky - was paying his homage to Mongols too.

As far as I'm concerned this particular topic or rather mini-topic has been sufficiently covered, there is nothing more to say.

Leonid wrote:Mongols weren't that coherent either and with the passage of time they were becoming even less so, both ethnically and politically, for later there was more than one Horde.

Eugene

You're arguing for the argument's sake again. You're of course perfectly entitled to it, but I believe I made my point. Mongols conquered and subjugated what is now Russia. Whether you call it a loose collection of different principalities or simply a territory which later became known as Russia, is irrelevant. All Russians princes paid their homage to Mongols, none could rule over his territory without explicit Mongol approval, and even the most famous and influential of them - Alexander Nevsky - was paying his homage to Mongols too.


As far as I'm concerned this particular topic or rather mini-topic has been sufficiently covered, there is nothing more to say.

ok, that's fair

Now, the thing that did Hitler and Napoleon in (one of many, but, in my opinion, very important) is that they thought nothing of Russian military might (or weight) and, what's more important - resilience.

Napoleon and Hitler made the same mistake. They seriously underestimated the Russian winter.

Hitler was megalomaniac enough to believe that the Wehrmacht and blitzkrieg tactics would overwhelm the Russian Army, which they did for a time. His generals told him that he was expanding a front in Russia that would be difficult to supply/defend, and were proven right. Of course, he was only listening to his inner voices being sick mentally.

Napoleon, on the other hand, simply wanted to take Moscow, thinking in terms of 18th century war tactics that revolved around defeating both armies and those who led them. Napoleon shares with Hitler the same bent for megalomania, but Napoleon remained lucid till the very end.

His luck changed on him in Russia (but had already in Spain), as it did for Hitler. Which is why the Russians have every right to celebrate thier victory over not only Hitler sixty years ago, but Napoleon as well.

I do not think that the merits of Russian victory over Napoleon are questioned.

The Belmont Club

The Last Valley

It was lost before it started. And yet it was not, strictly speaking, a military defeat. As Martin Windrow pointed out in his wonderful history of Dien Bien Phu, The Last Valley, of the three Chinese Communist challenges to the West in the immediate postwar period, the other two being the Malayan Emergency and North Korea's invasion of the South, only the French were unambiguously driven from the field. And yet

If France herself had not been overwhelmed by a sense of hopeless catastrophe, Dien Bien Phu could easily have proved a Pyrrhic victory for General Vo Nguyen Giap ... who lost something between a third and a half of his infantry on its ghastly slopes.

The instrument of the French garrison's destruction in the valley of the Noum Yam was the unprecedented creation by Vo Nguyen Giap of a powerful conventional army of 111 regular infantry battalions (in 1954) from his earlier guerilla force of which 50 would be ranged against the fortress commanded Colonel Christian de Castries. It was made possible by two things: the victory of Mao Tse Tung in China across the border from Vietnam and the opening of a direct supply route between Mao's forces and Ho Chi Minh's Free Zones of the Viet Bac. The French had interposed a semi-mobile force of a few battalions along the China-Vietnam border along Route Coloniale 4 or RC4 (which though grandly named was really a logging road built along a river) to keep the two apart. A less ambitious commander than Giap would have remained within the familiar confines of guerilla operations; but the ex-schoolteacher with a passion for military history was determined to have a regular army with which to drive the hated French into the sea. From 1949 onward he sent his new formations, trained and equipped in China, against the RC4 line until in 1950 the French were obliged to cede him an undisturbed route into China. The French withdrew their forces to the Red River Delta leaving Giap undisturbed to build up his conventional force.

By 1953, Giap's infantry units actually had a higher proportion of automatic weapons than the French. Three soldiers in ten, for example, had the Chinese Type 50 submachineguns. But not only had the People's Army achieved parity in infantry weapons, they actually deployed more mortars, recoiless rifles and antitank weapons than their equivalent French formations. The only real superiority left the French were in artillery, airpower, signals and tactical experience. But Giap had other advantages: he was free to swell his ranks with what amounted to a levee en masse from populations under his control, while French politicians had forbidden its army from using conscripts in Indochina and so starved it of money that until US military assistance provided it with modern weapons many French infantrymen were armed with bolt-action relics of the First World War. It was an army which, not to put too fine a point on it, consisted of the starvelings of Europe -- when it consisted of Europeans. A French private in Indochina then earned enough to buy a softdrink or three quarters of a bottle of the cheapest beer available per day. That he was not always French is driven home in Windrow's account and underlined by the photographs in the book. Even the most elite French parachute formations had large Vietnamese components. An ethnic breakdown of the garrison at Dien Bien Phu illustrates this.

French mainland 18.6%
Foreign legion 26.0%
North African 17.5%
West African 1.6%
Vietnamese 36.3%

The French high command's decision to garrison Dien Bien Phu was described by a US Army analyst as a violation of "nearly all of the principles of war at every level of war-- strategic, operational, and tactical", yet to a degree it made some sense. By choosing to build a fort in a remote mountain location near the Laotian border the French were choosing a battlefield that was as equally distant from the Viet Minh's own base of operations as it was from theirs. They were in effect inviting Giap to send forward his modern, conventional divisions -- with the logistical tail they required -- to square off in the middle of nowhere. To their amazement, Giap accepted. What the French had not understood was that Giap had imbibed the entire corpus of European military knowledge and had mastered logistics in his own way. In order to give his regular formations mobility, Giap had created a huge corps of porters trained to march standard distances with known loads. He would need them. It was with extreme reluctance that Giap's political masters approved his plan to risk the People's Army in a winner-take-all slugfest.

Even to bring his army to the battlefield would involve marching them -- and dragging their artillery -- at least 300 miles through hills from the Viet Bac and the South Delta base areas; and Giap's supply lines from the Chinese frontier would eventually extend over 500 miles, along a network of rudimentary roads which in many places still had to be excavated from the jungle ... the Viet Minh would have to assemble and carry over that distance every piece of equipment, every bullet, every bowl of rice for an army of perhaps 50,000 men; and they would have to keep these vulnerable lines of communication open to supply that army, in a mountain wilderness, during a major positional battle which might last for weeks.

Although it may be plausibly argued that the fate of Dien Bien Phu had been strategically sealed by the loss of RC4, in tactical terms it was decisively lost at the logistical race between the French, with their single airfield supplying 16 battalions and Giap, with his 100,000 porters desperately sustaining 50 battalions. Giap got there 'firstest with the mostest'. Until the storm broke on Dien Bien Phu on March 13, 1954 the French high command refused to accept the possibility that Giap had concentrated five divisions: 304 'Nam Dinh', 304 'Viet Bac', 312 'Ben Tre', 316 'Bien Hoa' and heavy division 351 with 24 x 105 mm and 18 x 75 mm field guns, numerous mortars, recoiless rifles and anti-aircraft weapons in the hills around the depression in which the French fortress sat like an inviting target. Windrow's description of Giap's initial assault is a tour de force. French commanders thought at first that a thunderstorm had broken out in the hills to east of their position. It was the first of thousands of shells that would rain down on the mud fortification that first night. The US 105 mm howitzer, with which Giap was supplied by the Chinese, ripped sandbagged strongpoints of the French to pieces and closed the camp runway, its only connection to the world. Of those it struck "the spinal column -- surprisingly resilient -- often survives, after a shell has fallen among a group of men, counting the remaining spines" was how the French knew how many had died. Then Giap sent his human waves against the loneliest and most exposed positions of the Dien Bien Phu.

In hindsight, the French could even then have turned the tide if the fortresses' commanders had kept their heads. But confusion, abetted by a lucky shell hit which killed de Castries' sector commander, prevented the garrison from launching a counterattack. The key northeastern hill positions fell in a night; the French artillery commander killed himself in despair; de Castries radioed Hanoi to say it would all be over in a couple of days. De Castries subordinate infantry commanders decided to take matters into their own hands. Realizing that unless the the eastern positions were held the main camp would be overlooked with direct fire weapons and anti-aircraft guns, senior para commander LTC Pierre Langlais told de Castries to clear his broken staff out and put him in charge. It was then that Dien Bien Phu became an epic of endurance.

I will not relate how Langlais and his Parachute and Legion mafia managed to hold off Giap's men until that stolid general was almost reduced to despair. Buy or borrow Windrow's book to read that. But Dien Bien Phu was not to fall in two or three days, as de Castries predicted, but go for 55 days and force Giap to declare a national emergency in the Viet Bac, which required sending every available replacement to the front. The key to Langlais' success was his realization that the Viet Minh, in digging in their artillery pieces to camouflage them and protect them from counterbattery, had limited their traverse and coordination. By counterattacking Langlais took the fight outside of the Viet Minhs pre-registered fields of fire onto a dynamic battlefield where French artillery had the comparative advantage. He pleaded with Hanoi to send him reinforcements for the punch to drive the enemy off the hills. There were few because Hanoi, in its infinite wisdom had scheduled Operation Atlante to improve security in the Red River delta to run concurrently with scheduled battle for Dien Bien Phu. Still, volunteers were permitted to jump into the beleaguered fortress, with or without parachute training. One of the most striking descriptive passages is when Langlais orders fuel drums lit to guide them in and dark sky above him crackles with snap of opening T-7 parachutes, some men making the first jump in their lives.

Time and again Giap sent his regiments against the eastern hills -- the Elianes -- and just as often Langlais would retake them, but without the strength to hold. Survivors, recalling these attacks and counterattacks, would relate how the French units would approach the hills singing their regimental marching songs, though the Vietnamese among them, uncomfortable with these Germanic cadences, would break into the Marsellaise. Ninety one percent of the Vietnamese soldiers of France captured at Dien Bien Phu would be killed in Viet Minh prison camps.

Perhaps those men were climbing their own hill toward some summit of personal loyalty and pride, a place beyond any power of human government to cheapen or betray. Just a few months later the French would hastily embark the remnants of their colonial empire at shipping in Haiphong. Of the men, only their song remains.

We are bright sparks
Low life of an extraordinary kind
Who are sometime somewhat regretful
Of fever and fire and of Death who we never forget
Though it may forget us for a little while.
-- verses loosely adapted from Le Boudin


It's worth the read.

Sarkozy 2007 !!!!

tronche! Havent seen you since CNN!

hello to you Glenn

I have been working too much and too far from my home...Actually I have been working many months in Macao.If I remember well you used to live in Hong-Kong, right ?

Salut tronche. How about Juve eh?

Ciao bineaz

Well I have dreamt of a Juve-Lyon, perhaps in final ?

Allez Airbus Industrie !!!!

world record....

Tronche

My old friend Louis, we need you back on the football boards. As Cantona said on that Nike commericial...we can make it beautiful again.

Yeah, Tronche...and we gotta do something about your man's picture. With a posture and a longface like that you wouldn't win election to a school board in America:)

Down with Villa Pain!

Bored, right ?

go educate yourself then....

http://www.loosechange911.com

That's what they call educaSHON in France. Bunch of losers.

Tronche

Like I said, we need you back on the football boards. Somebody has to uhold the Tri-Color!



Croatia needs to play France to avenge the shame of 1998!

8)

No comment on this poll result:

Would you honestly believe any study, which puts China at the top of Market Economy appraisal?

Why not? Lots of people in China managed to improve their living standard since China introduced market economy (or a system the Chinese government likes to call that way)

Felix K wrote:or a system the Chinese government likes to call that way

Exactly.

Absolutely. Chinese people don't need to read stories about the free market enterprise. They've lived it for the past 28 years. It's been a lot tougher on the Chinese peasant class, but for the cityfolk it's been one huge uninterrupted success story.

Of course, considering their political system the "free enterprise" term needs more than one qualifier, but certainly lots of them still remember socialism and know the difference.

I am acquainted with businessmen in America who built their wealth dealing with and travelling back and forth to China. China wouldn't run a $202 bil trade surplus with the United States if not for the huge progress their economy has made. Such a success wouldn't be possible without people enjoying fruits of it. Western corporations wouldn't be so eager to sell their fares in China if there wasn't a significant and ever growing middle class to consume cars, electronics, luxuries, financial instruments, mortgages, etc.

Good for them. However, calling their economical model "free enterprise" should give any one a pause.

As compared to France? Besides, in the poll people were expressing their attidude toward the free enterprise system. The poll wasn't about determining what nation qualifies and what isn't.

What is important is to know what these people believe or know about "free enterprise".

I believe that French economical model is far closer to free enterprise than Chinese. At least no party bosses are meddling in it in France.

Leonid wrote:As compared to France? Besides, in the poll people were expressing their attidude toward the free enterprise system. The poll wasn't about determining what nation qualifies and what isn't.

Right. The poll is about the perception of people, not about definition of Free Market Enterprise.

And comparing the markets of France and China... China has probably much less taxes and much less labor regulations, but on the other hand way more problems with corruption. Which of the markets is more of a "Free Market" is definitely a nontrivial question.

Felix, "free enterprise" means different things to French and Chinese. They can only provide their attitudes towards what they know "free enterprise" is. Which is like apples and oranges.