hahaha.

I think your a big fan of ppiper as you kept on buttering him.

I think the idea is to draw the endgame if natmaku entered the main lines with ...a6 followed by Be3 and Qb6 I think, my stem game is Kasparov- Radjabov (or was it Karjakin?) I don't remember, the endgame is better for White, but is a simple draw in corr.  And if White does not enter the main lines then ppipper gets good or sufficient counterplay anyway.  In the normal Nce2 lines White is perhaps a shade better, and with a tempo more, still slightly better, but the tempi really may not be worth so much here in such a closed position - but of course White has slightly more space.    It was this type of position where Black can kill the pace of the game, and try to outmaneuver the opponent.  I used to play these lines occasionally as Black, but at some point I got tired of suffering kingside attacks, just not particularly appealing positions for me to play OTB relative to more active options.

In my limited experience with the French, the nice thing about it, the first 10-15 moves are somewhat simple, and you probably won't go too wrong.  But after that things usually get difficult for awhile - depending on the variation and your opponent's knowledge of course.  Curiously, lots of players who like and excel at Sicilian positions really don't seem to play the positions in the French particularly well in my experience at every level of chess I've seen; in part I think this is because if White plays 3.Nc3, White has to be prepared for so many different positions.