French Cockerel on The Economist.

This is the cover of this week's The Economist with a very telling picture of a blind rooster. (I remind you that the rooster is France's national bird!).

French comedian Coluche used to say that the reason why it is the French national emblem is that "it's the only bird that manages to sing with its feet deep in shit".
In reality it seems that the "coq gaulois" became a symbol of France hundreds of years ago due to a semantic quirk - the latin word "gallus" meant both rooster and Gaul. So it has been the symbol for the French fighting spirit and ancestry for hundreds of years.
Personally, I prefer Coluche's version.... athough the singing sounds more like shouting these days.