I believe Germany's is much more interconnected while France's mostly goes from Paris to other places. Mesh versus star topology.

Yes, as a German I can agree.

However, I remember the anecdote of how France has two different companies for the trains and trainstations. The first ordered trains which were a little bit to wide for the trainstations, due to a miss communication.

When I read about this, I thought „this could have been Germany too.“

In fact German ICEs are limited in speed in Germany because of the rails, when they cross to France go faster.