There is a long tradition of gastronomy. Not saying we are the only country in the world with a good gastronomy, of course not, but it's in our genes. I think we are one of little peoples that are talking about food when eating. When you eat with other people, there is always a moment when you start talking about a restaurant, or a time, where/when you had a great meal.
We are also obsessed with our traditional meals or food. For example, close to each dairy farm have its sort of cheese. A lot of them will never cross the US border:-) There are moe than 1200 sort of cheese [1] and even protected ones, meaning the recipes and origin are protected by 'law' [2].
And that's also true for ham, delicatessen (and we love those), meat, poultry, and everything coming from unindustrialized farms (or not too much).
That's something we really care about. And because those foods taste something, there is no need to add sugar or other in it.
Of course, that's for the tradition picture. But we also eat junk food, microwaved food (even more since the 70's crisis where working or finding work became harder and harder each year). We just went 3-4 decades eating bad, especially in cities, and the obesity epidemy is somthing real in France too.
Fortunatly there was a wake up call in the middle of the 2000's and more and more people try to come back to less industrialized processed food.
And in conclusion, there's something true for French : we LOVE to eat !
[1] List in French : https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liste_de_fromages_fran%C3%A7ai... [2] Short list in English : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_French_cheeses