One more reason to dislike the French, from an MSNBC article on Syria:

"If in fact Syria is turning a blind eye to Iraqi officials crossing the border, this represents a shift in Syrian-Iraqi relations. The two countries have been at odds for decades, at times almost to the point of military confrontation, usually over Syrian restrictions on the flow of the Euphrates River. The major dispute between Baghdad and Damascus has its roots in the founding of the Baath Party, or the Arab Socialist Renaissance Party. The party was born in Damascus, Syria, in the 1940s, the brainchild of two French-trained Syrian teachers, Michel ‘Aflaq and Salah Al-Din Bitar."

So the left bank gave us Marcuse, Foucault, Derrida, AND the Baath Party. A-ha!