Welcome to the world, great to have you here? If you've just realized you're living in a world that isn't so black and white that people believe. Someone did probably take down those flags for whatever silly and incognisant reason they may have. However, to merely bias the French on that is just plain silly. If you're going to bias the French you could remark on children smoking and raw meat served as a main course.
Regardless of cultural maladies and misamayisms it's all a PR game. It's claimed that the United States is a country full of greedy businessmen and dirty morally bankrupt politicians, but isn't that the same of all countries? Your standard grade-A Socialist leader *coughdictatorcough* is just the same as a self-serving corporate domineered professional. You can throw all the Nationalistic Patriotic carbunkle out the window because a country's popular image is most often represented by its leaders and whatever stereotypes we can trick our minds into believing because it's so much harder thinking of other people as people and not whatever image we make to keep our heads un-muddled. It's hard enough waking up in the morning without considering everyone in the world at the same level as you.