The good thing about flying VFR in France is that you can choose.
You can set your SSR to 7000 and call nobody. You can swich off both SSR and VHF and still be legal, or you can call Info and get sometimes traffic info based on radar.
All this in all classes of airspace up to and including E .
Once you have understood the above, you realise that listening to the AFIS guy on Brest or Paris Info will only give you a false sense of security since he will only pass you traffic info on the traffic he/she sees and knows about...
Gliders very, very rarely call Info for instance
Look outside is still and by far the best option.
remember what the letters VFR stand for...
That said if you go into some Class E TMAs where RYR is flying ( e.g Poitiers) I would definitively advise to set transponder and listen to the CTR Frequency , because there is a 737 out there trying to get you.....