Actually, it has more to do with the acquisition of rights of all kinds. Trademarks, broadcast rights, marketing rights, etc. Which is one of the reasons why you're only beginning to see Gundam commercially in North America when it's over 25 years old. Bandai and some of its partner wanted the rights to be bought wholesale. In other words, if you wished to buy the rights to Gundam Wing, for example, you had to buy the rights for every single Gundam series in existence. We're talking about 12 series and several movies, it's just impossible.
Also, from my own experience here, what you get in North America are the dregs. The stuff that doesn't cost to much to buy and to market. Cowboy Beepop barely made a wave here.
As for associating anime and French, I can see that happening because the collaboration between the Japanese and the French during the 70s and 80s (even through to the early 90s) was the greatest in the manga industry. Still today, France is probably the single country in the world where manga is the most vastly distributed. I would know, I was born in Quebec and we used to get all the stuff from France when I was a kid... I grew up on the stuff. I was exposed to American comics and cartoons only when I hit puberty (no kidding).