It's true the French issued this directive, not the EU. But there's background. The EU is moving forward with plans for Internet censorship under two new regulations, the
Terrorist Content Regulation and the
Copyright Directive. As expected, they supported adoption by using easy non-controversial examples that everyone can get behind. There has been widespread concern about this leading to censorship and not just in US tech companies.
Germany had large protests over it. The French eagerly embraced these EU regulations. So the French are the actors in this case, but they are acting based on EU regulations they support, using EU software by the EU agency that will be regulating (censoring) Internet content. So this incident may be an early example of a growing trend.