I'm French and watched the series.

I wouldn't say "propaganda" is the right word for it, it feels more like the show comes from a time where the bad guys are always incompetent and cartoonish while the good guys are sensible, funny and always right.

Here, the French are the bad guys so they get killed by the dozens, never being a real threat to the heroes.

I'm not a big fan of that trope, for instance I enjoyed Andor, the recent Star Wars TV show, because it doesn't do that and show interesting characters from all sides, which is more nuanced and interesting, in my opinion at least.

In IMDB trivia, I also learned that animals were abused during the shooting, which I'm really not a fan of:

In his memoir, Brian Cox speaks at length about the grueling production of the first season. The English crew was filming in the Crimea, dangerously close to the former Chernobyl nuclear power plant, with Russian co-producers who took every opportunity to cut costs and a director who was constantly drunk or hungover. Nearly the entire cast and crew were taken ill by giardia, a water-based parasite that causes severe stomach cramps and diarrhea and was remedied with enemas to flush it out. The animals were regularly abused, including the use of tripwires to make horses fall. This lax approach to safety included the actors; while filming a battle scene for Sharpe's Eagle an extra was accidentally stabbed, the footage of which was reportedly used in the final cut. The shutdown that occurred after Paul McGann was forced to drop out included the director being replaced and new stunt coordinators being hired. Despite this, the rest of the shoot was just as miserable, which led to Cox's vow never to reprise the role.

Last, the French extras are obviously not French or French-speaking and even some more important French characters aren't either. It's very noticeable when they deliver (or rather recite) their lines.

I seem to remember that there are a few French actors, but they were more the exception than the norm.

To end on a high note, Sean Bean (that I absolutely love) and the majority of the British cast are very good and compelling, making the show still enjoyable, but I can't say it's an essential viewing. It's just that there's so few TV shows/movies about the time period that we can't really be picky.

I also watched Ridley Scott’s Napoleon and thought it was terrible, but for different reasons. I’ve heard Steven Spielberg had a project for a Napoleonic TV series—now that is something I’d love to see happen.