Fwench Puzzled by July 4th Flags

From Agence France Presse:

It's a true epidemic: the red, white and blue, stars-and-stripes banners are everywhere in the United States - on house facades, front lawns, cars and clothes.

"It's a little strange, this obsession of the flag," French author Bernard-Henri Levy wrote after traveling across the country.

"Everywhere, in every form, flapping in the wind or on stickers, an epidemic of flags that has spread throughout the city," Levy wrote in "American Vertigo" of the riot of banners he saw.

I feel your pain, Bernard-Henri. The French tri-color is, at best, an uninspired design, but that's not the real problem.

The real problem is that the tri-color is most familiar to the French (those few who choose to serve it, when outlanders still can be enticed to join the Foreign Legion) as a rallypoint to mark the extent of the latest retreat. Or perhaps on letterhead detailing a special, secret business arrangement with Saddam Hussein.

It seems that the once-great French nation has never truly recovered from the shame of Vichy France and the collaboration epidemic.

Quelle dommage.

Cross-posted at The Jawa Report.