Well, France has a long history of sinophilia starting back in the days when the Silky Road first opened, and the French royals went crazy over Chinese silk and Chinese art. One of the most famous sinophiles being Gottfried Leibniz (okay, he is German, but most people think he is French). I think it was because the during the age of Imperialism, the Brits had India, and France had its eyes set on China for its empire building, but it never materialized. France colonized Vietnam, and renamed it Indo-China, even though Vietnam had nothing to with China. Def some weird obsession going on here.

I remember when I was a kid, China was still not that open to the West yet. The Louvre was one of the first Western museums to open a touring exhibition in Beijing, I remember going with my mom, and she was like, "these are all really famous paintings." My dad and i were like, "yeah, we are hungry, let's get out of here." So I generally have a good impression of France for their historical and cultural ties with China.