Speed camera support is turned off in France. Always, no matter which app you use.
Here We Go (as it is now called) does have an audible warning if you go over the posted limit, which Google doesn't. In fact until relatively recently Google never even told you the speed limit.
Google has some stupid routing too, to save you a nano second or two it seems, and when they reroute you because of a jam or whatever they don't always take you on roads that are roads, but are forest roads or farm roads. We have also found sometimes it just doesn't direct us to where we should be but to somewhere vaguely near it. On a local roundabout it always tells you to exit one exit too soon. Strangers are always caught out by that.
Having data on does mean you can search for a petrol station or a shop or whatever along the way, but you can also put these in when you download the map.
Make sure you turn off tracking if using Google Maps. It can get really annoying and I am not sure Google really needs to know your every move.

Paper maps are always needed in my experience if you want to find more interesting routes or stops along the way. Apps just can't give you a "lets meander through the countryside to get from A to B" route. Even with no motorways option turned off they still choose the fastest/shortest route.

We worried about this problem before our last trip just before the covid plague. It turned out to be a big nothing. We picked up an Orange sim chip for our phone at a kiosk in the airport. They put it in, set up the phone, and we were good for two weeks at a reasonable price. All the stuff on our phone worked like before but now we had a French phone number. You can get another two weeks for a smaller add on fee. The amount of data and calls was far more than needed.

As for GPS in the car, all my planning for using the phone for that was wasted worry, because the car had GPS. The rental agent set it up for English and put in the location for our first stop.

I guess we all use sat nav and mapping apps in different ways.

"Apps just can't give you a "lets meander through the countryside to get from A to B" route. Even with no motorways option turned off they still choose the fastest/shortest route.”

There is no need to follow them slavishly. I just identify individual places I want to visit and set them step accordingly, step by step. If I choose to go off piste, then the apps will try to re route and I just ignore the instructions until I am ready to listen again.

I have tried using downloaded google maps and whilst they are useful for planning, I do find them very unresponsive and lacking in functionality.

Using a purchased SIM card with a data bundle in an unlocked phone is a no brainer. It doesn’t cost much and is way more useful than downloading maps and trying to muddle through. Why risk missing turnings on highways because you don’t receive instructions in time or spend hours in traffic that could have been avoided.

If you don’t have an unlocked phone then I suppose teh only alternative is to buy one or borrow and old one form someone.

I use Here for my cycling holidays in europe. I'm not really interested in traffic jams. I find it finds all the local restaurants pretty well and step by step to my next hotel. Power consumption on my existing cheap phone is enough for a 6 hour ride at full use of more if I'm going for a long day.

If you have too much money, then give it to the Ukrainians rather than just more money to the Chinese.

This is what I use: https://maps.me/

Just download maps while you're connected to wifi and you can navigate without using data or needing an internet connection.

Yes! I use this on all my France trips, and it works faultlessly and data-cost-free.

We have bought different companies’ SIM cards in different places in Europe. In Puglia we bought a TIM card because the clerk at another SIM store was rude.