Want to know what the French press think of Americans? Merde in France gives an excerpt from French journalist Mathieu Lindon’s column on French attitudes toward the American soldiers in Iraq:

We are very interested in American deaths in Iraq. If we were as passionate about our own elderly, we would have had fewer victims. If the Americans are as moved by our deaths as we are by their deaths, they’ll soon make a landing in France to stop the massacre. It’s just that, and we will never admit it, every American soldier killed in Iraq causes, if not happiness, at least a certain satisfaction.
…
It’s not really Iraq that interests us, but the Americans and what they are doing over there and what they are suffering through. It’s as if France wanted to be, not a new State of the Union (we are too independant), not the President of the United States (we would have to take action), but the Supreme Court of the United States. All of France could then take part in referendums to say what is good and what is bad.

We always knew it, but it is nice to have it out in the open now.