Well there are so many rules and official norms (approx. 400,000) and exceptions about pretty much anything in France that this is pretty accurate... Just look up the rules of the road regarding phone calls while driving for examples and see how it has evolved over time: specifically holding the phone was forbidden but using headphones were explicitly allowed until the latter also got banned by another law a few years back. Now to have calls we must put our phones on speakers (but not too loud) and use both hands for driving, effectively forbidding us to give any calls while driving all that without explicitly saying so.
It's hardly enforceable, but wait until you encounter a zealous police agent that's been tasked to give a certain amount of tickets
What you said about France is absolutely not true.
Article V of the French constitution:
> The law has the right to forbid only actions harmful to society. Anything which is not forbidden by the law cannot be impeded, and no one can be constrained to do what it does not order.
Given that the US constitution was greatly influenced by the French one, and given France's influence and substantial aid in helping to establish the USA as an independent country it's hard for me to imagine how anyone could believe this, unless they were completely unaware of both French and American history and culture.