Been registered for a while and "sneaked" around from time to time. About time to say "Hello!"
I also observed French performing averagely at times: intuitively it is a more balanced or cost-effective, if you like, combination of coalition rel. inexpensive arty and very decent and numerous infantry (think of Prussia and Austria), Brits and Russians fall in a different category. Furthermore, arillery have been buffed (canister, pivot speed) in v2 and the French possibly suffered more than the rest as artillery was always their strong side. Cavalry is still very good, but if that is lost early in battle then it is game over indeed (well, applies to any faction). So, what VC says and what Avon is trying to do in v3-beta1 seems to make sense.
NBC plays the French in CoC with Dragons and had one very close defeat and one clear defeat with French, both times against Prussians. Prussian infantry was the central player in both, I would say.
To echo the Sloop's comment, I would not change the French for coalition now