I have been to France probably 20 times total now, 2-3 times a year. My take on eating food out is walk until you have not seen another American, and walk another few blocks, and you probably will find good places to eat. Really good often as not. And of course, there is no single type of French food or style. What you will find in Bordeaux is different from Paris. Lyon is generally considered the culinary mecca in France and based on my limited experience I would agree. The primary wine there, not surprisingly, is Beaujolais, not the "nouveau" stuff we get here, but the real stuff from Gamay grapes.
They also treat you very well in my experience, and I've been on my own quite a few times now as well. The "touristy" spots are just that, like being in Pigeon Forge, almost. Sort of. Well, not that bad. Nowhere near that bad, but touristy nonetheless.
My wife oddly enough prefers American wines on the whole and I prefer French, though I really like American and Italian and Spanish and Germans wines as well. There are general differences of course, but the differences are less that one is better than they are different and you may prefer A over B. Or not. All of my wine friends "in the business" prefer French wines over Italian mainly because of Champagne, they all really like Champagne a lot. I do pretty well myself with the Cremant types which are far less expensive, or Cavas which are much much less expensive and often quite good.
I have not been to Italy or Spain nearly as much, just a few days in both cases, not enough to form a real opinion.
A few years back, I gave an invited talk at a French wine conference about the differences and similarities between American and French wines. It was pretty entertaining I think, for me anyway. And the food was good. They don't know much about American viniculture of course.
