Tick tock. Today could be the day SCOTUS rules on this. It's conflicting. Its clearly illegal, but I'd hate too see SCOTUS save Trump from himself on this subject.
This is, in a way, an inferiority complex common among French right-wing presidents. That's why I don't trust the French in the case of a united EU army, as these calimeros would immediately use it to push the French agenda of maintaining a global superpower status.
It's primarily nostalgia for a bygone era, the colonial past. Chirac's statement, quoted by Robert Borden, is a fantasy with no basis in reality. The problem is that this nostalgic fantasy has led to a series of interferences (coups, military interventions...) in Africa that had disastrous effects (the Rwandan genocide, among others, for which Mitterrand bears responsibility). Similarly, the illusion that France holds the status of a global superpower, and that it must be maintained, is a joke.
The gloves came off north of the border. Mark Carney is visiting China to pivot away from the US 2011640243129307255 is not a valid tweet id
What you quoted was data that covered the government shutdown, so it was incomplete. Since then (this month), there are no indications that the data is any more off/wrong than usual.