Edith Piaf. Personally I can't abide France but when I listen to her I almost find the idea of going there again tolerable. Believe me, this is a HUGE step in my world!!!

French baroque music immediately puts me in a French state of mind:
instrumental music by Francois Couperin, instrumental and vocal music by Jean Phillipe Rameau, two of the greatest composers ever.
Their music is elegant, subtle, colourful. A true delight.

I don't know why exactly, but there isn't really any French music that evokes France for me. I'm not at all up on French popular music, and I know nothing about traditional French folk songs, with the exception of a few Christmas carols, but I'm familiar with most of the composers mentioned here. But French composers' music doesn't make me think of France in the same way that the music of Russian, Czech, Italian, Spanish, Hungarian, and a very few Scandinavian composers makes me think of their cultures and lands.
Are there identifiable French folk song traditions, and are there easily available CDs that include such songs? Folk songs of Sicily, Turkey, Greece, Ireland, etc., make me think of those places.

BTilke, I just checked on amazon.fr, and the compilation does appear : just type in "Hôtel Costes Sept", and you'll get the icon with the CD cover.