"I'm sure France would have been happy for us to foot the bill for containing Saddam indefinitely. France was a significant participant in GW1 but noticeably absent afterwards. Perhaps it might have been hard to get Iraqi contracts while bombing them."

Perhaps:)
As for Raoul's complaint of the US putting too many forces in the area- this shows a lack of understanding of the local politics. Of course, France isn't as ignorant as Raoul seems to be implying- it's obvious that if France wanted to have a bigger say, they could have put troops into the region- they could have put a fraction of the UK forces and had a significant *vote* in those matters. But again, *perhaps* it might have affected their business deals with Saddam.
Btw, I think we should welcome any Russian troops if Russia should change it's position. Though French troops at this point in time would probably not make any political sense: American/French/or any Arab country.