I've flown drones in France with French friends, never had any problems and none of them have said we couldn't fly or even mentioned any draconian restrictions, except of course the obvious common sense no fly places that no sensible drone pilots would fly near or over anyway.
Maybe Applies only to tourist, if your French your likely exempt ;-)
Only joking, although my experience when I've stayed with friends in France, both French and English, is they decide if they think a rule is fair or sensible, if they don't think it is, they simply treat it as advisory and carry on lol.
Although I can sort of understand the restrictions on Paris, even If your were allowed, its not sensible to fly over any heavily populated area anyway, I certainly wouldn't
