France has had a pretty diverse team since the 90's and even before then a lot of their star players have been from a European immigrant background like Kopa(Polish) and Platini(Italian). Even now with Griezmann(German, Portuguese) and Hernandez(Spanish).
I don't know how it is in France but it might be like Switzerland where soccer isn't a really popular middle class sport and is played mainly by the lower class and immigrant communities