The issue about which I was writing was not a Canadian civil war. The French would certainly not get involved in that militarily. Politically, they certainly would, on the side of Quebec.

I was writing in response to Herbie's question as to why Canada has never simply siezed St. Pierre and Miquelon, two small French islands off the Newfoundland coast. These islands cause Canada considerable headaches, because France asserts her full territorial jurisdiction over the waters surrounding them, which are of course right in the middle of Canadian territorial waters as well. So, the French and Canadians are always struggling over fishery rights in particular. Herbie wondered why Canada has never just taken the islands.

My answer was that Canada cannot simply invade another country to take its land because it would be convenient. There would be no basis for doing so under either international or Canadian law. It would be a completely lawless act and nobody, including the United States, would stand up for Canada if they did it. The second part of my answer is that Canada cannot simply invade French territory and hold onto it, because the French would come and take it back.

That is where I discussed military issues. The scenario is this: something gets in the water in Canada and the country goes militaristic. This is already an impossible scenario, but let's play along. So, seized by militarism, the Canadians send some boats from Newfoundland and seize St. Pierre and Miquelon islands from France. The French have nothing to defend these islands there, because the whole notion is ridiculous, but playing along, the Canadian invasion, probably by police, would be a success. The islands would be taken, and now the Canadians would be in occupation of a pair of French islands with a few thousand very angry French fishermen and their families.

The next thing that would happen is that France would say "Give the islands back, please." We have to assume that Canada doesn't. So the French go to the UN and before the world and say "Canada has invaded our territory and won't give it back!"
And the whole world to a country, including the US, would look at the situation and say "Ummm, yeah. Those islands have been French since 1515, everybody on them is French, and everybody knows they're French. What is Canada doing there?"

So we have to assume that the Canadians are brazen and ignore the unanimous condemnation of the entire world for invading a piece of France and refusing to give it back. Even the Americans could not side with Canada on this one.

So, what would happen next would be the incredible farce of the French putting together a naval task force sufficient to defeat the Canadian navy (should it sail out and do battle), and then steaming for the islands to take them back.

The Americans would not send out aircraft carriers or anything else to stop the French from taking their own islands back. If the Americans DID, it would be the end of the NATO alliance.

Then we have to assume that the Canadians actually send forces to reinforce the island and actually meet the French to do battle on the seas. The French blow them out of the water and take the islands back, and everybody scratches their heads and wonders what the hell that was all about.

It's all rather incredible, really. But the bottom line is that Canada can't invade St. Pierre and Miquelon. If any Prime Minister ever proposed it in cabinet they'd put him away in a looney bin.

I did misunderstand and thought that it was part of a Canadian Civil War scenario. However, if Canada did take those islands, Canada could hold them at a cost. Those islands are well within air support range of mainland Canada. French Navy vs Canadian Navy, French Navy wins. French Navy vs Canadian Navy and Air Force, Canada wins. One on one, a CF-18 is no match for the Raffale. Ten on one, the CF-18 kicks the Raffale's ass.

The French would undoubtedly debark commandos on the island by submarine.
Also, if the French sent a full-on carrier task force, the Canadians would have to use most of their air force to try and fight. Air-to-air is one thing, but there would be surface-to-air as well.

USA is absolutely forced to remain neutral in such a scenario. It would be a gut wrenching situation with emotion favoring our cousins to the North, and logic favoring our European pseudo allies.

That said, the French actually envision themselves as some kind of world power. They aren't, in reality, but they think they are which counts for something. They do have an aircraft carrier and a handful of submarines, as well as their legendary mercenaries (the French haven't had the nerve to fight their own land battles since WW1). They are much more than a match for the Canadian forces, which would last maybe two weeks against them since they'd have trouble marshalling their military assets across the Atlantic. They French would regain their island within a month.

Goddam squids!
Bring as many naval vessels as you wish sunk into the Gulf of St. Lawrence.
Naval battles ended sixty years ago. You wouldn't get near shore if we really didn't want you to.

The US would have to remain neutral, but keep in mind that F-22's don't show up on radar and can kill at up to 100 miles. Those CF-18's may seem to have quite a bit more firepower and do a little better against the Raffales than the French would expect.

Sure they are.

They're not a hyperpower, like the United States, or a superpower like Russia.
But below those two are the French and the British, at roughly equal strength.
Other countries like China or India have huge armies and air forces, but they aren't deployable.

Russia would probably have more difficulty deploying a combat force by sea than the British or French would. And that's really the game: deployable strength.

Are you kidding, the French might as well just give their troops white flags and teach them to say "I surrender," in all the major languages. I would be on Togo in a major war before I would France.

Actually you already are,

Well then Vicomte13 has a chance to prove me wrong and show that the French can fight.

So far they've been massacred at least one time because of crude tactical mistakes, the video above doesn't show them in full control of the situation either. Ask Windwalker, I guess! lol

I wouldn't want to pass judgement on them. I couldn't understand more than a dozen words of that video, and it was just showing clips, not the whole video. The local Afghans there seem pretty happy to have the French help, though.

Watching the video, I got the impression they were allowing the enemy to think that they had to upper hand just enough to lure them into hanging around for the helecopter to come back around.

---------

Speaking of France's military might, don't forget that they also maintain and control a quite large and agile package of nuclear weapons.

why there is always someone with an unreasonable fictional scenario like that? What kind of idiot would jeopardise Canada for those 2 rocks?

Of course, France will start with the pacific approach. "Give them back?"

And it will be the ultimatum. "Give them back!"

They will give the canadians a little chance to overthrown their gov't.

Even if EU is not yet united like USA can be, the other europeans will feel that this attack is against their union either. They will want to come along France. If France wants to come alone, they will have to ask the rest of the EU to stay home. However, France is pro EU and it would go against what they promote. So the whole EU will come and not just to take back those two rocks. They will make sure the idiots are now in Eurpean's hands. If it means to take over Canada, so be it. Canada would not stand a chance.

USA? They will be the first ones to jump into the bandwagon. They will not ask permissions. They will attack Canada as well and take everything they can as fast as possible to leave the least possible to the Europeans.

Canadians would feel a terrible shame and it would be deserved. The coalition will give them time to rebuild their politics and set up a new government. Eventually let Canada get back its full sovereignty but I cannot garanty that Canada will get back it's original shape though. Americans and Europeans might took some pieces. Mostly unpopulated pieces but, interesting in resources or geostrategical military positionning. Or not... because of the previous good canadian's reputation and because the world learnt from the WW1/WW2 lesson to not humiliate a country.

That would happen if Canada does such thing. But it won't. Because Herbie is not yet the prime minister.

Exactly. Alex is just trying to be a smartass. He thoughts this could make look the french weaks. It is not. All the allies are working together overthere. The french didn't send over alot. Not as much as the americans do. It's because it is very controversal in France. So the french sends just enough to please their american ally, not too much so the population does not get too upset.

The video is just a normal situation where it could have been americans. No one is injured. The enemy is killed.

No, you have to prove otherwise.

In WW2, when the allies were beaten by the germans and retreated to G-B, several french soldiers choosed to stay and slow down the arrival of the germans. It gave just enough time for everyone (british, french under DeGaulle's leadership, and all the other allies, to orginize a retreat back to G-B. They did that even if they knew they had no chances to survive. If the french were like you say, the allies would have never had the chance to retreat to G-B and it would have been easy for the germans to take G-B. Chruchill was very thankful for those sacrifes.

I don't expect a small mind anti-french like you to admit that. I will accept your ignorance as an admission.

I'm not sure the Québeçois would be happy with that. I'm not sure I would be against either.

It is very clear that the french have alot to win by taking Québec. In resources also.

Oh, I doubt very much of that. France wants to play a major role in Europe and sees the EU as a tool for it. The leadership of France is very respected by europeans and France is not yet interested to let it go.

Yes, but, not at the expense of their european leadership. France/Québec would rather try to be the hands shake of Europe and America. They would use Québec as the intersection. France likes to be the negociaters, the diplomatic solutioners, the center of attention

I am not sure I understand what you mean. I can tell you that it is when UK tried to make english as the only one official language of the EU that the french and the german stroke back by setting all languages as officials. To make sure english will never dominate the structure.

I see where you are going but, France will not loose interest in the rest of Europe. The EU project is not only based on a economic target. It is beyond that.

No. Québec will do far better when Ottawa will no longer put his stick into the wheel. Of course it would be better if there is a canadian solution for Québec but, Québec will do better as independent rather than the status quo.

Well, you know my opinion.

True. Alot of french want to come because they do not like France anymore. Nothing would stop them anymore.

Well, it is clear that for your point of view, it is the best outcome. I see the same benefits but, I also see other internal problems between those 2. Even if Québec would have a non-neglectible influence, France would still be the dominator and political choices will be made in Paris' best interests and it can sometimes go against Québec's interests.

Plus, when french people come here in Québec, they discover that although we speak the same language, we are more different than they expected. The Québécois have a north american perspective. It can be very useful to France tho but, it depends how fast they can adapt to that new reality.

I agree that the entire scenario is absurd, but I'm willing to look past the part where Canada would never invade those islands in the first place for the sake of the debate.

France vs Canada over taking back a couple of useless rocks, the US most likely stays out of it. An all out EU attack on Canada, the US goes all in on Canada's side. Here's what is not being considered. Right or wrong, for better or worse, an ally is an ally and Canada is a far closer and more important ally than France. It would be a matter of; " Yep little brother, you stepped in it big time, now let's see if we can fix this." A phone call would then go from Washington DC to Paris saying that an attack on Canada would be considered by the United States to be an attack on the United States. It would be a lose/lose situation for the US. The US ends up eating shit either way, but only one way keeps a shooting war off of the North American continent and the northern NORAD stations out of the EU's hands.

Jeez Benz, I was gonna make them part of Quebec! Then France would be in a totally embarrassing position of having to oppose that.
But my friends from N&L say as long as the bars stay open later and they don't rat you out to customs bringing back duty free booze and smokes, they can live with the islands being part of France.
Sort of like it used to be with Point Roberts, Washington.
So let's seize that instead.
Wait... bad idea. We'd have to bring forces from the Island and we'd get dinged overheight fees by BC Ferries... and they'd probably be on strike anyway!

No the whole point of the mention was to point out the existence of St. Pierre and Miquelon. If there was annexation, I think their existence would be something offensive to Americans.

In that case, I think the US would offer to purchase the islands from France before using political force and/or blackmail to take them. We would probably offer France access for French products in the US market in exchange for the islands. It wouldn't be the first time that Americans drank California and NY wines while eating Wisconsin cheese if the French said non.

Aren't there some pretty good wineries in BC as well?

If Canada did join the US, the USAF would need some place to test the capabilities of it's newly acquired CF-18's. 25 miles out to sea off of Newfoundland would be a good place to test them 24/7 until they have all been deemed worthy or have fallen out of the sky. Oh yes, we just happen to have plenty of F-18 parts in the Arizona dessert to keep them flying for quite a long time. At least they wouldn't be keeping people awake and wrecking tourism in the "State of Newfoundland". The noise levels 25 miles off of the coast may be an entirely different thing.

Interesting point, especially considering that this is where the French put their listening stations for their UK-USA independent "Echelon" equivalent when harvesting North-American airwaves. Perhaps it could be bought from them as part of a consolidated continental security perimeter. They could become an American territory like Guam lol