Please correct me if I'm wrong, but it is the Disney characters that actually had value. The works that were about to fall out of copyright had very little value to the corporation. Wouldn't it have made more sense to protect those characters under trademark laws and find some way to let the works to fall into the public domain without violating the trademarks?

As for the French law, this sounds a bit like compulsory licensing for music. In that respect, I don't think that it sounds very innovative or tyrannical.