Comment by sersi

Yup and even when they are credit cards, "cartes à débit différé", they behave more like automated charge cards. The amount is automatically taken out of your account at the end of the month, you are supposed to pay in full and don't have the option of making minimum payments. So the poor banks cannot make nearly as much money with interest rates and instead are forced to have relatively high account maintenance fees (that are published and much more transparent to the customer).

That said as a French person with a ssn living in Asia, I don't have a french credit card because it's so expensive and foreign conversion fees are very high, whereas I use a us card because the currency conversion rate is very close to the market rate and it costs a lot less to maintain the account.