I find it odd that so many say their Gitanes are so sloppy. The brazing is actually pretty good on mine (paint is thin, chrome is crappy, and while I'm complaining - those rigida rims are nearly as bad as anything Huffy has ever had on their bikes) The poorest brazing I've seen would have to have been on my Fuji Sport 10 - gaps between the lugs and tubing, absolutely terrible looking, the Senator (also japanese but a generation older) was also pretty bad, the Miata a generation younger than the Fuji was excellently crafted though.
The Sports Pacer V Columbia I have, was brazed together beautifully - no lugs of course, but every joint is perfectly clean and crisp and the frame is in perfect alignment (aside from the top tube which seems to slope on every Columbia I've ever seen) - unlike my 1964 Western Flyer (also made by Columbia) which is not so straight, and also features a big gob of brazing material on the headtube that nobody bothered to clean off (not to mention the thinest paint job I've yet seen on a bike).