I'm pretty sure racism was, to various extents, in the veins of all European colonial powers until about half of the XX century, so you can't put the blame on just one guy. More like on the whole continent.

The author doesn't mention any of Napoleon the Great's civilian achievements or the reasons for the so-called "Napoleonic Wars" bankrolled by a cynical British cabinet that used the hostility of European Old Régime monarchies to attack a powerful commercial rival [Cf AJP Taylor's "How Wars Begin"]. Unlike Hitler whose aim was always to expand Germany at the expense of "lesser races" to the east (imitating the British in India, cf Ian Kershaw), Napoleon came to power during a war and devoted himself to restoring peace as the condition necessary to the multitude of projects that were necessary both to his people and to his own satisfaction ["The Rise and Fall of Napoleon Bonaparte", Robert Asprey, Tome I, Abacus, 2001, p424-425, Cf also his 16th of August 1807 address to the Legislative assembly]. His enemies in both London and Vienna refused to negotiate peace with a "usurper" until defeat forced them to make peace, and as with the courts in Berlin, St Petersburg and Madrid, saw his appeals for peace as a sign of weakness. Their attempts to exploit that "weakness" led to millions of deaths and to the expansion of the French Empire well beyond what Napoleon had imagined on European soil.

As for the rubbish spouted by the journalist Claude Ribbe, the Napoleon Foundation that he slanders in his pamphlets has demonstrated that not only was there no order from Napoleon - who unlike Hitler issued all his orders in writing, except during the 1815 campaign, and as precisely as possible - to commit genocide, and the letter quoted by Ribbe actually begins "This is my [General Leclerc's] opinion". Ribbe, having omitted this line, goes on to claim that Leclerc was reciting verbal orders given by the First Consul.=, but of course, serious examination of the documents by historians shows that not only is this untrue, but deeply offensive to victims of both the Armenian genocide of 1915 and of the Holocaust. Ribbe's claim that Napoleon committed a genocide that was the blueprint for Hitler's crimes against humanity is not only a lie based on deliberate misrepresentation of a historical source, but a negation of the real examples cited by Hitler as his inspiration : the British raj in India (cf Ian Kershaw) for lebensraum and "the annihilation of the Armenians" as his example for genocide of "lesser races" including Slavic peoples and the Jews(cf Ian Kershaw).

Napoleon, who abolished slavery in Malta in 1798, released 2,000 Turks and Moors imprisoned for their faith and informed the Jews of Malta that they were now free to build a synagogue (just as he closed Jewish ghettoes across Europe), was personally against slavery, but genuinely abolishing slavery meant losing both the slaves and the colonies to the UK, as it would amount to a declaration of war on Britain (which ran around 3/4 of the slave trade as the world's foremost maritime power) and the subsequent support of the colonial planters for UK annexation of overseas territories that the French navy was too weak to defend. The Senate refused to accept Napoleon's proposition of a mixed settlement in which slavery would be only maintained where it had been abolished in order to avoid a rupture of the peace of Amiens (France had been at war from 1792 until 1801) and so the law that was finally passed by the assemblies in 1802 states that slavery would be maintained throughout the French colonies, pending an international agreement to abolish the slave trade.

Toussaint Louverture's loyalty was "debatable", as he betrayed France and Napoleon (who appointed him) personally, by unilaterally declaring the territory confided to him an independent state and informing Paris of the secession by sending the new constitution to Napoleon. [Cf"The Rise and Fall of Napoleon Bonaparte", Robert Asprey, Tome I, Abacus, 2001, p354, p413-414; "Napoleon", Frank McLynn, Pimlico, 1998, Ch11, p238]. As for racism, a widespread problem, much of the bloodshed was caused by ferocious fighting between "mulattoes and blacks" [Cf"The Rise and Fall of Napoleon Bonaparte", Robert Asprey, Tome I, Abacus, 2001, p419], something which is mentioned even less frequently than atrocities committed against white civilians or Napoleon's own choice of General Dumas as the godfather to the children he hoped to have with Josephine [Cf "Napoleon", Vincent Cronin, HarperCollins, 1971, 1994ed, Ch10, p146], or his giving an Eagle standard to the "Black Pioneers" (a mark of esteem and trust in the unit that he refused to the Neapolitain troops in his service, just as the French National Guard units had standards with spear-tips but not Eagles). So much for "And was a racist".

Stendhal said that Napoleon becomes greater the more one knows him. That is an understatement to say the least. Not only is the Civil Code the foundation of the law of much of the world today, Napoleon also personally promoted and pioneered vaccination, education for girls, State retirement and accident insurance pensions, founded hospices for incurables and deaf-mutes, ended inhumane practices such as the castration of young choirboys, personally supervised the fight against unemployment and supported industry by ensuring the payment of wages and a minimum salary for urban workers, built and maintained roads, canals, harbours and schools across Europe, and had the sick seperated in hospitals according to their ailments. A poor sketch of the great works of a man who need not fear comparisons with Hitler's persecutions and mass murder of the disabled, Jews, Poles, Russians, gypsies, homosexuals, political opponents, Jehovah's Witnesses and others who did not fit the Nazi vision of a "pure" and "perfect" society. Unlike the latter, Napoleon not only rebuilt homes and buildings damaged by his own troops, but compensated victims of damage caused by his enemies. Two examples in particular stand out alongside the great victories of Ulm, Austerlitz and Jena : the inhabitants of Jena in 1806, and the victims of the Austrian invasion of France's ally Bavaria in 1805 (particularly the inhabitants of the areas around the river Inn and the Isar.

So much for the ruins left by Napoleon, as opposed to the devastation caused across the German states by Prussian, Austrian and Russian destruction caused by the Coalition forces and the "scorched earth" policy forced on the Russian serfs by the Russian authorities [Cf "Napoleon", Frank McLynn, Pimlico, 1998, Ch23, p527] in 1812.

The article is very shallow. The author tries to score some cheap points by invoking the kind of nationalism that simply does not exist in the EU institutions anymore. Everybody accepts Barroso to lead even though he is Portuguese. Everybody accepts Jerzy Buzek to lead even though he is Polish. Or you can take the Council's rotating presidency.

Not sure there's a whole lot of reveration for Cromwell. He's the mass murdering regicide who at the same time toppled despotism. If anything I suspect the vast majority of people do not even know who he is. Those that do probably are equally split between those who regard him as an almost Lenin like figure (necessary but brutal) and others in the more libertarian camp who may agree with the direction of his aims but disagree with the end outcomes. Reveration on the other hand is not associated with his name.

What's wrong with Cromwell? Unlike say, revered founding fathers of another nation, he was not a slave-owner.