Heh. Perhaps you should take the things I say with a pinch of salt, just in case. I might be biased, and all. And I keep thinking of genuinely French BD series that are awesome - Yoko Tsuno popped into my head just now. *looks that up just to be sure* Oh what do you know, it's Belgian. Nevermind that.

As for ignorance, not arrogance, there's not much of a difference, in the eyes of smaller nations. Especially when it's coming from a fellow "minority" or "small nation" (I put the scare quotes because both descriptions are debatable, but you get my point).

Oh trust me, it only got worse after that. The one after Latraviata featured, and I kid you not, an alien in a spaceship.

Ah, well, LL is certainly not on a level with Asterix or some other series. I'd imagine the one about Québec should be easy enough to find over there though, so if you ever come across it you can read it.

It's a story set in Caesar's Rome (yes, like Asterix, but then seriously), does a good job at exploring that world, and when it's good (Les Légions Perdues), it's brilliant.

Makes sense, but what's stopping you from catching up on what you've missed out on, then?

You say "was", but it's still going strong, and obviously it started a long time after Spirou (in 1990, according to the French Wikipedia). I don't think parents in the sixties or seventies would much have appreciated the humour in Le Petit Spirou, for the reasons you name. I really don't think it was or is more commonly available to children (although it may well be more popular, at this point), or more aimed at them (if anything, it seems aimed at the people who grew up reading Spirou and were adults by the time Le Petit Spirou started, what with the subtle ironic remarks and references to the grown-up Spirou).