Also, it was a very high priority for France - keep in mind Napoleon's quote about the relative importance of moral and material.
More critically: The logic of "The French did {extremely complex thing} fairly well in the late 1900's, therefore we can also" is very similar to the logic of "SpaceX designs and operates reusable rockets with hundreds of launches per year and no failures, therefore we can also". NO, sorry, you are just fantasizing about rocket science somehow being easy for you. SpaceX has lots of highly motivated would-be competitors - many of them far better financed than SpaceX was - but the hard fact is that zero of those can actually do what SpaceX is doing.
