France has always been kind of contrarian. For example, they are NATO members but unbelievably they were also selling Russia a couple of Mistral landing platform docks.
Tons of high profile people have been talking about how it is not tolerable that the US is unilaterally forcing embargoes using the $US and tech as a weapon. Development of alternatives take time, but this has already started.
The goal is not to replace the US with China. Not only things are not reducible to a single dimension, but even if they were, it does not make the need to enforce our own sovereignty disappear.
France left once, and came back. They used to pander to communist regime during the Cold War. During the NATO bombing during the Yugoslavian dissolution, a French General was caught giving out the bombing plans to the enemy.
No wonder nobody likes their foreign policy, and Macron is puzzled why the other EU countries don’t follow France in creating a Common EU military force.
The other countries know when push comes to shove, the US is a reliable partner, while France is not.