I don't get it. It is obvious that France is in the western part of the continent, unless it annexes Germany which is at least unlikely.

Besides I don't see any way around the problem. If we play it well France will give us support in questions we are interested in. Germany and probably the UK are easier to convince, but only really overwhelming support can work well in certain areas such as energy security or security in general.

We are in no situation when we either have to rely solely on France (thanks God !) or it is somehow crucial to our safety (thanks again), but we need to play on all fronts - double, tripple guarantees are the only way to give us at least 50 years of relative safety, although I hope for more.

Sorry mate, but France can play a very important part in the game we need to play - we are not Switzerland, Sweden or Andorra, we are Poland a country which either is successfull or it disappears because there is no way we can relocate to a safe corner of the Earth if there is any such place anymore.

So we either gain French support or we will have to create so complicated schemes to acheve something that everything qill fall apart with any really minute change or incident.
See how it is now - from EU states only three small Baltic states have similar attitude for sure, but they lack long term vision and are too small. Czechs are fine, but you never know anything for sure with them - in critical moment they can as well fortify in Prague and play political Szwejk. Slovakia is a mess again. Our centuries old friends Hungarians are now sadly between a Russian trojan horse and a really hesitant ally and center-righ-populist Fidesz opposition is just like our imbeciles from PiS. Germany have their own plans and their hesitation with Ukraine is well known even with Merkel. They simply have other priorities than we, though it is not too difficult to sway their opinion it will never be the same as ours. Besides it can get worse if their sado-masochistic love affair with Russia starts anew with a second Schroder in power one day.
Others from eastern-central Europe are either not interested (Slovenia), limited to Balcans in their interests (future members such as Croatia), with open pro-Russian leanings (Bulgaria, Greece) or without sufficient strenght, even if quite enthusiastic (Romania). Scandinavians are fine, but hardly useful in certain projects and we can simply ignore most of the western medium and small powers for their lack of interest (Spain) or really sad state of their politics (Italy, possibly Belgium).
So we get the Uk which will always be a bit away from the continent and the self-centred French.

Of course France is anything but a perfect ally, to be honest they are indeed terrible - pompous, arrogant, treating others as half-barbarians who just discovered forks (probably when in France) and in general thinking about themselves as the center of all things, but it is either a shifting, ever changing and fragile construct which makes a house of cards a concrete bunker in comparison or we will need to gain their support from time to time.

So I say we do much to accomodate them, to make them feel happy - tell them how we love their cousine, how wonderful their language is, how much we poor and modest 'barbarians' can learn from them, frak, we can even tell them how we appreciate the great and long lasting Polish Franco-Polish (putting the right words in the order they could enjoy the most) or call Maria Curie-Skłodowska, Marie Curie from time to time.
Indeed even if our diplomacy needs to recall Lassalle's poem about Pol... Franco-Polish friendship every time it is nowhere we lose anything important as long as we stick to the principles, do not sacrifice our plans and gain their support when we need it.





BTW I really like French language and literature - no disrespect here.



P.S. Totally disagree about Napoleon. For centuries it was the only time when our interests were virtually the same as those of France. Remember that in 1797-1807 even the word Poland was officially banned after the partition agreement and the cursed trinity could be only demolished by an outsider with too much energy and ambition who could only be the Corsican. Despite Santo Domingo, Żeromski's "Popioły" and Vistula Legion nothing changes that the only rational outcome of Napoleon's conquest would be fully ressurected Rzeczpospolita with addition of Code Civil which was an excellent work too.
That is why we lost so much in 1812, 1813, 1814 and 1815 , but at least after 1815 nobody could entirely ignore us anymore, even if it meant open attempts to annihilate us in decades after 1864.


P.S 2.
I suggest to change the sign. I don't like simplified and provocative way this man uses in his biased crusade - doing much harm to the question I care so much and inspiring extremists, BUT this way you are making this persona an authority, a recommended source - in most cases the only one. With predictable and utterly distasteful results.