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What they object to, I think, is being rich and boring.
Very much this. Comments on L'Equipe actually seem to focus more on whether Froome is using a hidden motor-that's to say they don't believe he's a 'doper' but a cheat all the same and one that hides behind technology and a team of super domestiques. Capitulating time with the moto incident would have made him the underdog and endeared him more to people perhaps, but he'd still be fucking dull and on Brailsford's leash.
It's unromantic, and eeking out a 20 second lead on a descent leaves no room for waxing lyrical about Pantani-esque solo escapes, jumpers for goalposts and smashing it up the climbs, bike disintegrating under the epic watts getting teased out gurning thighs.
Contador got caught doping but he rides with panache. Wiggins rode for Sky but he had sideburns, got angry and stuck his finger up at people. Cadel Evans had a small dog, a face like a Marseille hotelier's arse and a squeeky voice, and spent most of his career doggedly trying but not winning. When the French look at Froome and the Sky apparatus behind him, fair or not all they see is a bike riding robot backed up a corporate behemoth that excuses their own team's (with not dissimilar budgets) poor performances, team roster additions and out of date training regimens...
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I think this idea of Sky being able to buy their success is more to the point. I once asked a French gentleman from Marseilles what the French thought of Bradley Wiggins:
‘Oh, yes, we like him very much.’
Did he think Bradley took drugs to enhance his performance?
‘But of course.’
He didn't care whether Wiggins doped or not; I don't think the French take the same puritanical view that English speaking Protestants do (same with football and the attitude towards diving).
The fact that the French seemed to quite like Wiggins implies that being British isn't so much of a big deal either. What they object to, I think, is being rich and boring and successful.