French engineering is amongst the best in the world - this year French teams & cars won both the Formula 1 championship and World rally championship against very stiff resistance from other big Europen and Japanese mames ie BMW, Mercedes, Toyota, Honda etc.

Mirage 3 czs were maybe not the best but the Mirage F1s were extremely good fighters and the modern Rafale is state of the art. Take a look at the F111 we use here. Whilst it is a good a/c its costing a fortune to maintain and enough of them have fallen from the sky!!

Take a look at Airbus - an unknown aircraft manufacturer 30 years ago - now they are outselling Boeing by nearly 2 to 1. Whilst it could be argued its a European a/c its is predominantly French.

Vapodog - whilst you may not like Citroens, they were YEARS ahead of other manufactureres with things like Hydraulic suspension and headlights that turned when you turned a corner. Lexus has suddenly stumbled upon the idea some 35 years later and we see that ad on TV with the dear crossing the road.

Just a few examples that come to mind