RicOlie_2 said:
Presumably, however, the translation was the influence, not the original...or does George Lucas read French?
You could be right. These things tend to have various traslations down the years though. It's also more of a visual thing, I can't recall too many story elements turning up in SW. The influence of the story can be seen more in Luc Besson's '5th Element', but Besson reads French quite well I believe.