Its military is made up of spear-wielding superheroes who can fly through the air in invisible aircraft, reports The Telegraph.
But that has not stopped France’s defence minister from picking a fight with the fictional African kingdom of Wakanda and its creator, the Hollywood movie giant Marvel.
Sébastien Lecornu, France’s youngest cabinet minister at just 36, has hit out at the representation of his nation’s soldiers as rapacious looters in the latest instalment of the Black Panther franchise.
“I strongly condemn this false and deceptive representation of our armed forces,” Mr Lecornu wrote on Twitter, more than three months after the film’s theatrical release.
In the second instalment of the Marvel franchise, French soldiers appear at the UN after they were captured trying to steal vibranium from Wakanda. With their hands bound, they are ordered to kneel in front of the queen of the nation, Ramonda, who calls out the visibly humiliated French representative in a powerful speech.
Mr Lecornu’s intervention came in response to a series of posts on Twitter by Jean Bexon, a French journalist who has written regularly about what he calls the “anti-French” sentiment of the film and its director Ryan Coogler.