Jotape , just to add to your Francophobia the French have one of the largest fleets of submarine cable repair ships in the world and these are the optimim vessels for black box recovery in a situation like this.
Yes France is a pretty 'integrated' country but no more so than the US when it comes to self interest and if we Brits had any interests left to manage after we bankrupted them or sold them to foreign entities we would behave in exactly the same way.
I think you will find coffee smells the same the world over