I haven't read the stripes book, but her criticism of the failure to take technology into account sounds justified - I complained to the BBC about a (British) programme that did the same thing last week.
On the other, more general point, I don't know how old the reviewer is, but she's slagging off the structualist/post structualist/post modernist theory that has been totally dominant in British as well as French universities for the last thirty years or so. I had to wade through it and I loathed every minute of it - post-modernism in particular is the antithesis of Jacobin moral certainty, and I think its influence on the current generation of politicians and political commentators is pernicious. I suppose I should have been warned - Terry Eagleton (then high priest of the cult) looked at me on the College open day, dressed in my goth Robespierre outfit, and said 'you won't be happy here', and he was so right!
As to the French in general, I suspect that, like every other middle class Londoner, Ms. Rule is even now sunbathing in her second home in Provence. The British middle classes adore France (maybe they don't adore the actual French, but then, neither did De Gaulle), and the British upper classes are (Norman) French!