I think that you are right. The French are a strange bunch. I was there for about a year and a half in the late fifties. My wife, my daughter and I were there for a week in the early seventies. Not much had changed.
In the fifties, there was an active communist party. As a result, Americans were despised. Not being present for more than a week in the early seventies did not allow me to form much of an opinion, but I detected much of the same attitude toward Americans. For example, during the late afternoon of the last day of our visit, we decided to pick up some little gifts for friends. I noticed that there were a number of souvenir shops just below the Champs near the garden of the Tuleries. We went into one of the shops which was attended by a single lady. Wanting to inquire about some of the merchandise there, I said "Parle vous engle, madame?" (Do you speak English, madam?) Her very terse reply was, "Vous parle Francais, Monsieur!" (You speak French, Sir!) I looked at my wife and jokingly remarked, "This lady doesn't realize that I just expended 95% of my French vocabulary."
In spite of the rudeness, though, I did detect compassion. We were traveling around Paris in the Metro one day and my daughter (about 6 years of age at the time) was in serious need of a potty break. A lady who tended one of the ticket booths saw my little daughter's dance of desperation and beckoned to me. I went to the window and she handed me a key to what was obviously an employees' restroom. I thanked her as well as I could in my rather limited French.
I think that there is goodness and reasonableness there. It has simply been subdued by bad politics.