On the one hand, you have this.  I've read Foucault and Levi-Strauss in translation.  Foucault I really enjoyed - well, I really enjoyed his Prison book, which is not nearly as beloved as his books on sexuality, which were not nearly as good, in my opinion.  Levi-Strauss taught me how to read carefully and take notes, as the meticulous application of such techniques was the only was I was able to get anything at all out of The Savage Mind.  In history and anthro grad school, Derrida, Althusser, and Lacan were only approached from a distance, as it was generally considered to be a far better use of time to read the commentaries on these works than to read the original.

On the other hand, you have the survivors of the old French empiricist tradition.  No good examples really come to mind at the moment (Braudel, perhaps?  But I only know him by name, never got around to reading his books, sadly), but I have several memories of reading VERY details and evidence oriented historical works by French authors.  Many French historians were also involved with exceptionally solid and sound economic and demographic reconstruction projects.  French anthropology, especially the early stuff, had a reputation of being too detail-oriented to be useful as anything other than reference material - just the facts, m'am.