JAMES LILEKS ON FRANCE — in his syndicated column:

To woo Americans back, the French government decided to hire a celeb to speak on France’s behalf. Did they get Arnold Schwarzenegger? (“Ahl be bach — for de crepes!”) Did they get Paula Abdul? (“I don’t care what Simon says, France is incredibly talented.”)

No, they got Woody Allen. Most Americans regard Woody as a wrinkly creep who makes movies you no longer regret missing. Even on video. “I don’t want to have to freedom-kiss my wife,” Allen says in the ads, “when what I really want to do is French-kiss her.”

Eewww. You might recall that Allen is 391 years older than his wife, and that his wife was his previous girlfriend’s adopted daughter. Why him? Roman Polanski wasn’t available?

They also got George Plimpton to appear in an ad, making it official: French understanding of American culture is taken entirely from a 1968 issue of Playboy.

Hmm. I wonder if it was August, 1968. My 7th-grade biology teacher was in that one. Lileks continues:

If France pulls through, it’ll be important again. And if it doesn’t, which seems increasingly likely, it will tear itself apart with strikes. Its economy will be consumed by the rapacious demands of its welfare state. Its restive, unassimilated Muslim population might demand a parallel legal system based on Sharia law. These possibilities should please no one.

We wish the French the best. But their days as the moral avatar, the champion of humanity, are long gone. That reputation — unearned for decades — will die in the Congo, where French troops are behaving as effectively as, well, French troops. The painful fact is that no one expects much of them anymore beyond good food, bribery and honeyed hypocrisy.

Read the whole thing.

UPDATE: Speaking of teachers posing nude, there’s a nude calendar featuring British high school teachers. It’s selling well.