In France, we did get some franchises where the 4kids edits were still present, namely Pokémon and Yu-Gi-Oh, but due to the dubbing directions being likely different, I can only speak about the edits and how the dialogues were handled. Back then, I didn't really pay much attention and just enjoyed the shows, but after watching a Yu-Gi-Oh episode in french a month ago, I did notice how some additional dialogues were added (I'm talking about an edit where a character is heard speaking, but not actually seen speaking on-screen). But aside of that, I didn't mind how 4kids handled some shows, especially since we got some animes that took after the japanese script instead of 4kids's (that one being Sonic X).As far as censorship goes in french dubs, the 4kids edits have a competitor with AB France back in the late 80s /early 90s (for Dragon Ball fans, the AB France scripts of that anime's movies were the basis of the "Big Green" dub), which did see a lot of its more mature anime being censored. For context, AB France bought rights to import and dub a lot of anime franchises without looking at their contents too much, leading to stuff like Hokuto no Ken being showcased at time slots where kids are most likely to watch the T.V... I'm not joking. So of course, the comparaison will be made here. Whereas 4kids specialized in a lot of admittedly unnecessary edits and dialogue changes, AB France simply cuts certain parts of an anime episode if it was deemed too violent for kids, and while there are dialogue changes as well, some french dubbed animes like Hokuto no Ken or "Love me, my Knight" went further by either making the whole dub feel more like a parody version, or made so much changes in terms of overall settings by claiming something that's obviously in Japan is actually part of Paris. Mind you, it wasn't all bad, in fact a lot of french voice actors are well recognized here in France.
One noteworthy example of an anime that was heavily edited yet well-received in France was City Hunter, or "Nicky Larson" as it was renamed here. Name changes, setting changes (having a strip club being rebranded as a vegetarian restaurant, just to name an example), absurd dialogues at times and 90% of the bad guys being voiced by the same person with the same voice type... This one had it all. And yet, because the voice actors were giving their A-game, some dialogues remaining intact despite the subject being unsuitable for kids (one episode kept some lines about drug-dealing), and many exchanges being genuinely funny despite derailing a bit from the original script, this led to that anime's success in France. Heck, that anime's notoriety led to the City Hunter's 2018 french movie "Nicky Larson et le parfum de Cupidon"'s making and success.
I went on a bit of a tangeant here, but I'd say 4kids's edits... For some animes like One Piece, the hatred might be warranted, but for everything else, AB France was a fierce competitor in comparaison.
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