The pundit world has a crop of interesting analysis and opinion being tossed around about France.  First, Mark Steyn on the cunning, skillful maneuvering by France over the years:

There are many idiotic incoherent leaders in the world, several of them francophone (hint), but Jacques Chirac is not among them. Say what you like about M. le President -- call him irresponsible, call him unreliable, throw in shifty, devious, corrupt, and almost absurdly conceited. But he's not stupid. The issue for the French is very straightforward: What's in it for us?

...France is in the business of la gloire de la republique, and right now the main obstacle to that is the post-Soviet unipolar geopolitical settlement. They are not temperamentally suited to being anyone's sidekick: If Tony Blair wants to play Athens to America's Rome, or Tonto to Bush's Lone Ranger, or Sandy the dog to Dubya's Little Orphan Annie, fine. The French aren't interested in any awards for Best Supporting Actor.

In accordance with an "I deserve to be a superpower" view of the world, French pacifism is multilateral while their power projection is focused & unilateral:

...But France is one of only five official nuclear powers in the world, a status it takes seriously. When Greenpeace were interfering with French nuclear tests in the Pacific, they blew up the damn boat. Even I, a right-wing detester of the eco-loonies, would balk at killing the buggers.

...A few weeks ago, there was a spot of bother in Ivory Coast ...The French have no more right to treat it as a colony than the British have to treat Iraq as a colony. But they do. And they don't care what you think about it.

... But through it all France is admirably upfront in its unilateralism: It reserves the right to treat French Africa as its colonies, Middle Eastern dictators as its clients, the European Union as a Greater France and the UN as a kind of global condom to prevent the spread of Americanization. All this it does shamelessly and relatively effectively. It's time the rest of the West was so clear-sighted.

"Cheese eating surrender monkeys?"   Not quite.   Steyn paints a portrait of French policy that is far more grounded in rationality albeit within a unnatural bubble.  

Over at MSNBC, Chris Suellentrop provides a historical perspective on France's anti-Americanism.   This view is consistent with Steyn's thesis of French resentment at not having a bigger place at the table of World affairs.  And the primary obstacle to that place at the table is the United States:

...lots of Europeans have been complaining about Bush of late. But it’s not true. The French never really liked the Clinton administration, either. In June 2000, during President Clinton’s last year in office, France was the only one (talk about unilateralism) of 107 countries to refuse to sign a U.S. initiative aimed at encouraging democracy around the world. A year earlier, State Department spokesman James Rubin complained, “We do find it puzzling and passing strange that France would spend so much energy and focus so much attention on the danger to them of a strong United States rather than the dangers that we and France together face from countries like Iraq.” The French oppose the United States, quite simply, for what it is — the most powerful country on earth.

Some historical context:

...Much of the French opposition to American power arose after the fall of the Soviet Union made the United States the only power in a unipolar world: According to one poll, the percentage of the French who viewed the United States “with sympathy” dropped from 54 percent to 35 percent between 1988 and 1996. But French grumbling over U.S. power predates the end of the Cold War, too. As Philip H. Gordon outlined in the National Interest in 2000 (during the Clinton administration), “resentment and frustration” have marked French-American relations since the end of World War II. When Charles de Gaulle became president of the Fifth Republic, he was still resentful that FDR had refused to recognize his Free French resistance over the Vichy regime during the war. De Gaulle decided never to depend on the Americans again, and though he was an ally of the United States, he was an exceptionally cranky one, pursuing détente with the Soviet Union, withdrawing militarily from NATO, and establishing an independent French nuclear force.

But a glimmer of hope that all's well that ends well:

...in the end, France will go along with the Bush administration on Iraq. If France vetoes a Security Council resolution, and the Bush administration goes to war anyway, France will have been proved powerless. But if it accedes to the war after demanding more evidence, it will be able to claim that it influenced American policy — whether it’s true or not. Germany will likely stand on principle and oppose the war. But France would never do such a thing. As a U.N. diplomat said last week, “It matters to matter for France.”

---