What polish did you use?

Considering the age, it cleaned up pretty decent, considering it had corrosion. I just finished up a Raleigh Super Course, that had been kept near the Chesapeake, in a garage. It still had the green stuff on it, but it cleaned up really well, better than what I'm seeing here. I just cleaned it off and used chrome polish. But it's also an English bike.

I have a Mercier 300, purchased from my older sister, the original owner, 1971. She had kept it on a balcony at an apartment complex, and the chrome suffered. It didn't clean up as nice as yours, but I'm still pretty happy with it.

As you said, French chrome isn't the best. What you have looks pretty decent, for a 40+ year old bike.