~snip~
For France it is 16 WC participations with 2 titles and 10 UEFA Euro participations with 2 titles. For Croatia it is 6 participations in each tournament and the best result was the runner-up in 2018 at the WC and two times quarter finalists at the UEFA Euro with the last one being in 2008.
If you are already going into history, then it should be mentioned that the modern Croatian state was created in a bloody defensive war in 1991, and during that period it won third place at the world championship in France (1998), second place in Russia (2018), and third place in Qatar (2022). Therefore, Croatia, as a country of only 3.8 inhabitants that has existed for just over 30 years, has historically achieved fantastic results at world championships, and mostly with domestic players with the exception of one Brazilian (Eduardo da Silva), while France mainly relies on players who come from colonized countries, and it was never clear to me why they don't play for their homelands, which every player should do if they have chance.
Regrettably, you snipped the part where I said that I have a lot of respect for the Croatian team and you gave some reasons why. Everything you said is true and it is definitely worth a discussion, but it is different from the assessment as to which is the better team playing under a certain national flag. Croatia is a great soccer team and I follow their games at the big tournaments with a lot of excitement. Generally, I have a lot of respect for smaller nations competing well at international tournaments. Or countries that are not at all favorites like Morocco eliminating Spain and Portugal at the World Cup in Qatar. I am all for surprises like that.
But when it comes to a comparison, I can only consider the facts that are relevant to the game itself. Whether those facts are based on shortcomings or injustices isn't relevant for that question alone. Take as an example Qatar at the handball World Cup in 2015 when they naturalized players from abroad in order for those players to become part of the Qatar handball team. That is ridiculous. But when someone asked me whether I think that "Qatar" is going to beat team X, I have to accept the fact that some names on the Qatar squad are there, even if they shouldn't be under normal or fair circumstances.
If I had to choose the team that is better in my opinion, I would choose France over Croatia and I am not saying that France is like vastly superior and the odds are 90:10 in favor of France in any game. But I would say that France is stronger and in a long term battle would probably win more games than they tie or lose against Croatia.