No, it's because they play like crap.

I'm not defending France or anything. I dislike both teams, my team got eliminated a while ago.

But take a look at Argentina - Croatia. Argentina was way superior after the first 20 min or so, but Croatia was still holding. After the penalty Croatia was no longer playing football. When Argentina scored the second goal the defense was scared of even approaching the ball. A penalty in a tournament like this can kill the morale easily.

This happened all the time with Barcelona and Messi in the "golden" years. He's still a great player, but... ither should be allowed to play against fairly.

There needs to be a better way to deal with fouls "in the area".

I think you are mistaking hard physical play with geopolitics. An understandable mistake! They look so similar. ;-)