I like it but it still makes my life hard when I want to use french typography...
pandoc allows you to use different LaTeX templates than the ones it ships with. So, you can take the default templates, add the overrides necessary for French typography and voilà! (hopefully).
In your document? I find that pandoc + french typography = love as it is using LaTeX under the hood and LaTeX have pretty decent rules for French Typography (better than Microsoft Word IMHO).
You are free to use something else or better