I've been living in the Ile de France for five years now. The first two years were in a very dodgy part of Paris, then we moved to a very nice suburb.
Overall I find French people lovely, although I think it would be a lot harder to get to know people if I didn't speak good French. They are more direct than British people in the sense that they'll just say what they think rather than being passive aggressive, which can come across as rude at first but now I find it quite refreshing. If a French person is nice to you, they're being genuine.
The administration is a total ball ache. I rely on my French husband to do a lot of it, and even then he lapses and we end up with a mess to sort out. Things like taxes, healthcare, benefits, everything just takes so much more brain space than it does in the UK, even leaving aside any immigration stuff you might need to do as a foreign national.
The healthcare system is way, way better than the NHS. The admin side of things is a hassle, in terms of having to pay upfront and then send off paperwork to your health insurance to get reimbursed, but my god, the actual quality of the medical care you get is far superior.
Food and clothes are more expensive but people tend to buy quality over quantity. I don't think French cuisine is wildly exciting and I agree with PP that the restaurant scene is way better in London. But on a day to day basis we eat much better, with fresh bread from the boulangerie, meat from the butcher, fish, fruit and vegetables from the market. We eat much more seasonally. Mealtimes are an event, rather than just about refuelling.
Housing is more secure. Renters have far more rights in France than they do in the UK, to the point where being a landlord is actually fairly unattractive and the government has had to introduce tax incentive schemes to encourage people to buy to let, because you basically have to fight a lengthy court battle to kick your tenants out even if they haven't paid their rent for years. Rents can only be increased by a certain percentage each year. If you're in a position to buy, mortgage interest rates are cheaper than in the UK, and fixed for the entire term of the mortgage, which is usually 20 years. 25 years is seen as unusually long. This means that mortgage borrowing is substantially cheaper and less risky, and nobody in France is currently worrying about what happens next year when their fixed rate comes to an end.
On the other hand, fee free banking pretty much doesn't exist. You can expect to pay a fee each month for every debit card you have, which is annoying because my husband and I would like to have cards for both our individual accounts and the joint accounts, but it would be a significant added expense. I have an actual, in person bank manager who I've known since the day I opened my account, and he regularly calls me up to see how I'm doing. Credit cards don't really exist. The closest you can really get is a card where the payment of the balance is deferred for a month and taken from your linked current account the following month. They are mostly used for corporate purposes. This makes it really difficult for French people to hire cars and stay in certain hotels abroad. But it means that there aren't millions of French people juggling high amounts of personal debt either. Swings and roundabouts.
Maternity leave is much shorter. A standard maternity leave is 16 weeks, although you get longer for twins or a third child, and most women take 6 weeks before the birth and 10 weeks after. You need written permission from your doctor to work up to 38 weeks and take an additional three weeks after the birth. I find it absolutely crazy that women are signed off work 6 weeks before their due date, or sometimes even earlier if their doctor has concerns, but expected back in the office at 3 months postpartum.
Childcare is way, way cheaper, but can be a bit of a bunfight to sort out. To get a place in a public crèche you need to pre-register as soon as possible after your 12 week scan, and hope for the best. If you already have older children in the same crèche you are a priority case. There are various other ways of being a priority case. If you're not a priority case you cross your fingers and hope for the best, or possibly write to the mayor every week until they get sick of hearing from you and find you a place. If you get one, it's dirt cheap, even if you have to pay the full amount. If you don't earn much or you have lots of children, you pay a reduced amount. There isn't the same culture of women taking years off work to raise their own children.
The rules of the road are a bit bonkers - like having to give way to cars coming out of side roads from the right, for example - but the roads themselves are generally better maintained. A lot of roads are privately owned though, so there are a lot of tolls.
How clean it is depends a lot on the local population, and how good the local government is. Where I used to live, in Paris, it was absolutely filthy. Where I live now is squeaky clean.
Public transport is much, much cheaper, and if you live somewhere well connected, much better than in the UK. If you are employed, your employer has to pay 50% of your travel costs if you commute by public transport, which makes it even cheaper. High speed lines across the country mean very short journey times between the major cities.
I've only worked for one employer but I like the office culture, especially the work canteen and everyone taking a proper break at lunchtime to sit down and eat together. No sad sandwiches at desks. If you work for a big employer you can get some amazing perks too, like employee savings schemes where your employer pretty much matches what you put in, or 50% of your childcare paid. You can't use your holiday allowance until you've earned the days, which means that holidays are pretty thin on the ground for your first year in a new job, and then when you leave to go somewhere else, you get paid for the holiday you've accrued but not yet taken. To me this makes absolutely zero sense.
The voting system is much fairer and more representative. By the next election I should be a French citizen and I'm really looking forward to being able to cast a meaningful vote. Voting just seems like such a pointless waste of time in the UK.
I think I spent quite a few years trying to get my head around the baffling ways of the French and how the country actually works, and I still don't really understand it. All I know is that it does work. I'm not sure how, but it does.
Overall, I really like living there, and wouldn't move back. I think we have a way better quality of life in France than we would in the UK. And there certainly isn't this doom and gloom vibe in France that I get from people in the UK at the moment. French people love to complain and protest and go on strike, for sure, but that's just what they do, and it doesn't feel worse at the moment than at any other time.