If you doubt that French culture is dying, look at the sad state of France itself. France is a country that now has as many TV channels in Arabic as in French and an unsustainable economy driven by strikes. I'm not going to go as far as the author of Eurabia or the neocons in America generally and say that France is irrevocably doomed, but France has lost its status as a cultural trend-setter completely, just like it lost economic significance after the war. It's not just the Islamification of large parts of the suburbs of Paris and other major cities - that would be an oversimplification worthy of Fox News. It's a far deeper phenomenon, and a far more complicated one.

However, few people will deny that France is past its prime. From what I can tell, a fair number of French are dissatisfied with the current state of things as well (and they voted for Sarkozy, thankfully). I sympathize with them and with the rich, vibrant culture that has been almost destroyed. As a result, I'll take exception to your statements only as follows:

1. I do not despise France, though it has become a terrible trainwreck of a nation
2. I do not despise those French who want to make their country competitive without losing its identity
3. Sarkozy has tried to turn things and I think highly of him

However, if you want to say that I look down on people who can't learn the passé simple or properly use it in writing, then yes, I most emphatically do. If you want to say I look down on French people who wallow in a morass of entitlements, then yes, I do. If you think I`m implying that France has lost much of what made it great, then yes, I am. I admit all of that and am not trying to equivocate on any of those points.

Perhaps it`s not worth pointing out, but Québec seems to have retained a rich and truly French culture despite massive pressures from the English-speaking world around it. Montréal is a wonderfully French city and there is little that I could or would fault in their ability to mix a modern, multicultural society with a strong and assertively French flavor. Given that Canada`s economic system seems to work pretty well (for all I make fun of Canada), France could probably benefit from studying Québec a bit more.