Good to know, it makes a lot of sense. What do you think, was it written by a non-native speaker or is it comparable to something you find in a french newspaper?

The original article, in French, is very well-written; the grammar didn't strike me as "basic", but rather the writing of someone used to getting messages across clearly. Largely on par with most articles in French newspapers. That said, the automatic translation holds up pretty well, except for some gender issues and mistranslation of colloquialisms.

The author is an experienced academic historian and hence the language is precise, perfectly formed and persuasive. Google Translate does indeed do quite well. Where GT fails is in colloquial context sensitive language, like IRC or facebook, where it is terrible.