The French always posed as being very open-minded about aboriginal races. If you take your average American history course in the US you'll hear about how we were all mean to the American Indians but the French were kind and caring to them.
In reality they weren't. They played them against one another, hired them as pawns to do their fighting for them, and since they'd screw anything that moved, "traded" for as many of the women as the tribe could afford to spare. In the end you didn't see the noble French coming to their aid when they needed help.
The French are the same abusive imperialists as any other European nation. A lot of our problems in North Africa and Southeast Asia came from their incompetant imperialism and abuse of the people there. Now they whine about American imperialism while the snub yet another aboriginal leader.
Anyway, they are sooooo 200 years ago. The fact anyone considers a nation with the GDP and population of California to be a "world power" is silly, in my opinion.
