Taking it from the guy who's spent 20 years building a business on it, with no compensation, is the just thing?

It belongs to a person born there, who registered it and is using it. How is he in any way a squatter?!

Registered and used it with, apparently, the blessing of the French government for a couple of decades - they were aware of its existence, and worked with him in providing some content, as I understood the article.

It's ... nothing at all like cybersquatting. At all.

He had the blessing until he went for the trademark in Europe. In 2015 France.com didn't exist as trademark, then was registered by France.com Inc and at that point France declared prior use on the word France and related trademarks.

They let him use it until he tried to claim it for himself.

I'm not saying this is a squatter.

So if I have a US telephone number that spells out FRANCE, it's OK for France to seize it? 1-800-FRA-NCE1 ?

no no, the country should be represented by some American.

IMHO the only offensive part is how they took so much time to do it. That part is very nasty.