My first reply got lost. I'm sorry.

There is no way that the United States would have achieved it's freedom from Great Britain in 1776-1781 without French help. But by the same token, there is no way the Brits could have held on to America as a colony much past the Napoleonic wars. There would have been an independant America no later than 1805 anyway.
That being said, we owe France because they intervened at a time when Ben Franklin, George Washington, John Adams, Patrick Henry, Thomas Jefferson, George Mason, and about 3 dozen other assorted geniuses were directing the course of human events. I think it is a total freak accident of history that so many capable men came together at such a time--and the French were in a position to help and they did. Otherwise who knows? Maybe we would have been the world's first totalitarian dictatorship.
Maybe the American Republic as it is was meant to be. But I think that an American Republic founded in 1805 on the principles of Napoleon would have led to a very different place than the America I love today that was founded on the principles of Washington and Madison.
Regards, Vince