Sorry to be the Englishman in the woodpile, but, if it was in the French interest, they would invade, attack, frag , nuke or generally do anything they fucking wanted to do, irrespective of international opinion. As is their want.
The French are a singularly selfish nation and never tire of demonstrating that fact.
Look at London after WW2 and look at Paris after WW2.
We in Britain could have declared our cities as OPEN, but like the Russians, WE fought on.
God bless them for it, and for the intervention of the USA, or else ALL our children would be speaking German
Sorry..ain't got a lot of time for em.