alt Hacker NewsThat’s not true, at least in France. Perhaps it’s true in some other dialect, e.g. Quebec French; I don’t know.
From Wiktionary, the pronunciation of English bit is /bɪt/, and French bite is /bit/. The sounds represented in IPA by ɪ and i are not the same, which is precisely why “bit” and “beet” sound different to Americans.
I am from France. It's pronounced exactly the same here. Kids always joke about it when they first learn the English word 'bit'.