I have driven thousands and thousands of miles in France and I love it. The roads (except in Paris) are of wonderful quality and they are empty). Driving on the other side of the road is a shock at first, but you get used to it very quickly. I don't like driving a manual on the wrong side of the car, because I am left handed, so shifting gear with my right hand is a pain, but in my own car, it isn't a problem at all.
Just don't get stopped by 'les flics'. Once I was driving from Calais to my cousin's place in Burgundy, as I have done maybe twenty times. I'd been driving four and a half hours and was within twenty minutes of my destination. Was on a country road, but an excellent one, with next to no traffic, and was going fast. I came round a corner at 120 kph easy (90kph is the official limit on single carriageway roads). A tiny village, perhaps ten houses, hoved into view, so I braked, but I was still doing 90kph easily when I crossed in the 50kph zone, and I was doing 76 when I was speed gunned.
A lady cop with a sub machine gun used her weapon to indicate I should pull over. I did, and we started going through the (very long, this is France) form that was needed for a speeding offence. My French was better than her English, so we used that. We were doing fine, until she asked me 'Qui vous a donner votre license?' I knew what she had said -- 'who gave you your license? ' -- but I couldn't make sense of it, I thought she was taking the mickey out of me -- 'Who gave you your license, boy?' Then suddenly I had a blinding flash of light. I knew, from conversations I'd had before, that car registration in France was handled at the departmental level, perhaps driver licensing was too. 'Le gouvernment d'Angleterre', the English government, I said. Right answer. 'Ah, le gouvernment d'Angleterre', she said, filling in part 27 of the 53 line form.
By this point, we were getting on so well that I felt brave enough to bandy words with her, and asked her if driver licensing was a regional function in France, because in the UK it was a national one. She said yes, and relieved me of 90 euros, at the time the spot fine for speeding. If I hadn't had the money, she could have compelled me to go to an ATM and withdraw it; if I couldn't or wouldn't, she had the power to impound my car.
Moral: don't mess with lady French cops, and carry cash.