OK, I will.
I am convinced that French civilization is overrated.
I've read many books on history, histories of Europe, histories of the World, and most of them too much respect to France. In the last two histories of Europe I've read, France is taken as central and the rest of Europe is taken as peripheral. This is wrong because:
1. All of the most important events in European history took place outside France. The Scientific Revolution, the Reformation, the Industrial Revolution. Even the French Revolution, which Franco-Centric historians see as of astronomical importance as the first proclamation of national and liberal rights, is not that important. That assertion is actually utter nonsense. Revolutions in England and America preceded it.
2. The French have been very skilful at promoting themselves, especially since Louis XIV. I believe this success has led historians to assign importance to French history where it does not exist. The French Revolution is a prime example. Another one is the French Enlightenment, which is unjustifiably given a central place in intellectual history. The ideas of the French Enlightenment were of little import when compared with the ideas that came from England before it and Scotland and Germany after it. For instance, Newton and Locke in England, Smith in Scotland and Hegel and Marx in Germany. Which French Enlightenment thinker had as much effect as these guys? Jean-Jacques Rousseau
? Rousseau is only famous because of his lifestyle and repeating what Thomas Hobbes had already said. Voltaire 
? Please...don't get me started!3. French culture is still highly fashionable outside France, but unfairly. People like to associate themselves with French culture because they unconsciously believe, as with all fashions, that doing so will boost their status. But this should be abhorrent to anyone with any sense of cultural justice. If any cultures should be admired, then the English, the Germans, Americans and Italians would be much more worthy. Even in the last 200 years the French have still enjoyed free prestige. The Germans produced men such as Marx, Einstein, Freud, Wittgenstein and who have the French produced. Men like Sartre who say nothing useful and who are only ever original by modifying the view of their superior predecessors. In Sartre's case, these men were Kierkegaard, Dostoevsky and Nietzsche. What seems to be the general trend, as illustrated by the enlightenment, is that one man somewhere makes an intellectual accomplishment (e.g. Hobbes, but take your pick) a Frenchman comes along, modifies it slightly (Rousseau) and his cultures prestige makes the accomplishment famous.
4. The fact is that French culture has become so decadent since the Enlightenment that it has become deliberately pretentious to maintain its prestige. For instance, French moviemakers have never been able to compete with English and American moviemakers so, with their associated people, they promote snobbery and all that goes with it to keep respect. In truth though, the best movies in terms of popularity and critical acclaim have always been American.
5. In war and politics, not culture, the French are most impotant. Yet even in this respect they are not so impressive. France has lasted a long time, but they have never managed to dominate a winning side in a major war for centuries. They lost to England and Prussia in Napoleonic times, the lost to Prussia in 1871, they just manged with the help of the Anglo-Saxons to survive the Great War and they lost to Germany in WW2.
De Lorimier
So in response to De Lorimier's arrogant post. Reading history books is what made me come to this opinion. As for Clovis the Merovingians and the Carolingians...well, these are important, but medieval German kings and dynasties are not really what I'm attacking.
The colonies is perhaps the weakest point mentionable. Of all the big European state in the age of colonies, France did the worst. England, Portugal and Spain, arguably even Holland, left more impact on the world in this respect.
I'm, not saying that France isn't important only that it is highly overrated. I have only discussed the European context, but I believe the following European civs should be in before France:
Greece, Rome, Germany, England, Spain, Portugal, Russia, the Italians and the Celts. And if the Goths and Vikings and Swedes, etc were combined, they would fall behind this also. So the French would have a doubtful place in civ3 for me. And, quite simply, they are not even in the same league as the English, Germans, Rome, Greece and Russia.
So everyone, tell me why I'm wrong if you can.
), Jacques Cartier. That all I can see without aving to think. And what's wrong with Sarte and Voltaire?
