No, I'm pretty well versed in U.S. history, in particular, and World history, in general, and try to see it for what it is with as little influence of my own bias as possible.

If you read what I wrote, I was specific that the French influence in North American politics ended in Canada with Montcalm's defeat on the Plains of Abraham in 1759 and that their political influence over the rest of continental North American politics ended with the Louisiana Purchase in 1803.

I'm thankful that the French helped the U.S. gain its independence from the U.K., even if their help came more from self-serving motives rather than from any altruistic ones. After all, the enemy of my enemy is my friend.

I would hope that the French people are equally thankful that the U.S. helped liberate them from German occupation in both 1918 and 1945. Whatever debt the U.S. people owed to the French people, I believe that it has been paid back several times over, with interest.

Today, my biggest problem with the French people is that their leaders cling to a delusion of grandeur about France's status as a nation, even though it currently exerts little influence on anything except the price of champagne, goose liver pate, and truffles.

OTOH, I think that the French language and culture, as practiced in Quebec, gives the Province a certain quaint quality that is useful for drawing in U.S. tourist dollars, but it would seem to be a significant obstacle for those people who aren�t fully and functionally bilingual. Face it, English is the primary language of commerce in North America and French is a distant 3rd, falling far behind Spanish in terms of importance. Except for the common language, most Canadian Francophones, such as yourself, probably have less in common with the majority of the citizens of metropolitan France than they do with the majority of Anglophone Canadians, since they are all Canadians 1st and hyphen-Canadians 2nd.

BTW, I was raised in New Hampshire, about equal distance between Montreal and Boston, so I got my NL fix via the Expos and my AL fix via the Red Sox. I also have relatives in Quebec, some of whom, through inter-marriage, have become Francophones with sir names like Dion, LeBrun, LeDue, LeMay, Plamondon, Richard, and Roy. There are many things that I like about Quebec, Habitant Sour Pickles being 1 that I think of often.

Jeff