[Mijka]

Felt the same. The few french dubs that are feeling "ok" are mostly biased from nostalgia by being the first things we were exposed to. I know i feel that way with the Cowboy Bebop dub (and i won't take into account the Miyazaki movies as they are exceptions for many reasons).

The few other dubs i was exposed to later in life weren't good experiences either and you could feel the limited cast (in quality and quantity of actors) failing at not butchering things along the process.

Like you said animation and dubbing it wasn't taken seriously at all in the past, and is still limited nowadays in France as i understand it (short discussions with actual french dubbing actress and few articles).