Alain Prost is mostly viewed as a cold winning man..somethings like a anglo saxon...not really something french love. We rather like magnificent, bragart and loosing men like Alesi And well if french has to choose a great driver we've got one named Sebastien Loeb As for Biaggi he was simply no match to THE DOCTOR. He was a great pilot but always put his mistakes on the bike not on himself. And he wasn't as charismatic as Rossi (like Pedrosa is to Lorenzo in Spain)
You obviously have the point with those motorbicycle riders... Loeb is unbielievably fast but also seems like cold winning machine. In F1 maybe J. Bianchi in the near future.