Happy Bastille Day! I am a Francophile, no apologies.

Here's to the French, their amazing cuisine, their precious wine, their art, and their beautiful language. Happy Bastille Day! Vive la France!

I want to say for the record that I don't understand Americans who hate the French - even if they can be rude to tourists and imperfect in their politics (we aren't, right?). I sometimes see some nitwit guy who commutes up Coldwater Canyon in a white van with a bumper sticker that says "Boycott France." He also has one that says "W". I'll bet he eats Freedom Fries too.

Americans who hate the French with knee-jerk jingoistic ignorance haven't boned up on their history. In part, we owe the birth of our own country to the support provided by the French during the American Revolution. Without Lafayette's ships and French troop support on the ground, American revolutionaries were destined to lose (and badly) to the British. They were on the brink, and the French arrived right in time. (So maybe we have some kind of subconscious national ego issue with that?)

The French paid a huge economic price for their involvement in our revolution. The French Revolution in part occurred because Louis the XVI's decision to provide financial support to the Americans bankrupted the French treasury, leading to the bread shortages and starvation, revolutionary fervor, hatred and scapegoating of Marie Antoinette, and the inspiration behind the speech given by Camille Desmoulins from a table in a Parisian tavern 218 years ago that directly lead to the storming of the Bastille. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.

But wait, yes I do understand Americans who hate the French! It's because Chirac didn't support the American invasion of Iraq five years ago! And look how wrong those French all were. Not to mention all the other international entities (and United Nations) who were opposed to the invasion. Five years later, we're really close to getting that mission accomplished. (Sorry, what was the mission again?) I mean, that's what President Bush says, right? We are so close to success in Iraq! (How many soldiers lives have been lost? How many Iraqis are dead?)

Sarcasm aside, the petulant foolishness of anti-French sentiment bothers me. Give me some good reason for it, at least. I mean, they do have a real problem with anti-Semitism over there, so that would be one good reason. Here's a really bad one:

Several years ago I had brunch with my childhood friend Barbara and her husband Mike. We were on the terrace of Splash in Laguna Beach overlooking the ocean. I'd recently visited Montreal and Barb asked me if we should go sometime. We'd traveled to New Orleans together in 1994 and loved it. I said Montreal was a great city, uniquely bilingual, and I loved being able to speak French as well as English there.

Mike chimed in, "They refuse to speak English there."

"They speak English," I corrected.

"No," he said, shaking his head, "they don't."

"But they do," I insisted, not realizing yet that I was dealing with a cretin. "They spoke English with me many times. I preferred to speak French, but when they heard my American accent, they invariably switched to English."

"No," he insisted, "they don't speak English. The French refuse to speak English."

"But we're talking about Canadians, Mike. In Montreal, they are French Canadians. And I'm telling you they spoke English with me. But just so you know, many French people also spoke English with me on my trips to France."

Mike stubborningly insisted, "No, no they refuse to speak English."

I was annoyed. "What's your problem? I keep telling you they spoke English. I don't understand why you refuse to believe me."

At this point, Barb spoke up quietly, "It's because the French refused to support the Iraq war."

"But we're talking about Canadians, not the French, and anyway, that has nothing to do with Iraq."

But Mike just shook his head. "Yes it does. They're French. They came from France two hundred years ago."

"Okay," I said, "then I guess we're British, since we came from England 200 years ago."

God bless America.