This was bound to happen. Sick of Americans dominating their beloved tour, it seems the French want to restrict the competion to Anglophone countries with a few exceptions made for Spain and Germany:

http://harriscyclery.net/page.cfm?pageId=1666&contentType=1

On the 24th of July, 2005 we turned the page on a long, very long chapter in the history of the Tour de France. And one month later, current events made it clear to us that it was just as well that this was so. Does this justify closing the entire book and erasing all the emotions that, for so many years, the Tour and its champions have provided us with? Taken as a whole, judged on its lifelong worth ? like an artist or a poet ? and in particular on its future productions, we want to believe that the Tour de France deserves a better fate. The dream that it embodies, the values that it is capable of generating mean that it has a duty to be able to hold its head up in pride and to allow its host nation to hold its head up in pride.