Why the French like Jerry Lewis

Ever wondered why the French supposedly consider Jerry Lewis a comic genius? It's simple really:

Even the French embrace of jazz and the experimentalist comedy of Jerry Lewis's post-Dean Martin films is ''anti-Americanism carried on by other means,'' Roger argues, since championing such ''dissident and subversive'' elements allowed the French to portray mainstream American culture as pathetically blinkered.

The Roger referred to above is Philippe Roger, author of ''The American Enemy: The History of French Anti-Americanism,'' available in English this month. Roger started off doing what he thought would be a minor research project on 20th century French anti-Americanism and ended up tracing French anti-Americanism back 200 years.

See, you always knew there had to be some practical reason why the French like Jerry Lewis. They don't find him funny either, they applaud him just to annoy Americans.