Russian journalist Andrei Piontovksy describes the broad Anti-American coalition that emerged in Europe:

"Kerry lost precisely because he was so good at criticizing Bush but could offer no solution to the Iraq problem. "I will work with the Allies, and the UN" he kept on saying. The thing is that Bush would be very glad to get the Allies and the U.N. involved but no European soldier will ever end up in Iraq even to protect the U.N. headquarters in Baghdad. The so called 'Allies', and especially France, are eager to see the U.S. humiliated as much as possible, to see them fleeing from Iraq dishonourably according to the Vietnam scenario....
When it comes to France, a simple fact helps to explain this. France has been saved thrice by the U.S. in three world wars, including the Cold War. It cannot be forgiven."

I cannot agree more. The French have always seen themselves as a 'Great Power' (and grandeur is a French word too). Equipped with great French culture, political and military traditions French political elite had no doubt, prior to the outbreak of the First World War, the 20th century was be the time when France would rule the world. But they lost. They lost to the Americans, those ignorant rubes, decedents of the scum of Europe who had no culture and not even that much of an interest in achieving what France had strived for so much and failed.
Perhaps, it would have been easier to accept it if France had been defeated on the battlefield and so that the French elite could retain hope that the Conqueror and the Conquered may one day swap places. But simpletons from Alabama and Minnesota came to Paris to liberate it. It was not a defeat, it was humiliation.
THAT can't be forgiven, indeed.