I like the Musketeer. It's a lot of fun to beeline for needed tech, while using the industry and commerce to build as many spearmen, pikeman as possible.
Then when you can build Musketeer, upgrade all your defenders- and attack your closest neighbor with every single one of them. Empty all the cities of every military unit you have and set them to build more musketmen.
This will trigger the golden age, which will allow you to produce them even faster.
Its fun for me because I like to play land grab; build up all that land; then take some of the neighbors land- sue for peace- build that up- little by little step by step. So to just go totally wild and berserk and attack everything nearby is just plain fun.
Grab as much terriitory as you can during the golden age; then settle down and get all peaceful and build up all the territory you won. I am not saying its the best most logical strategy, just that its mucho fun, and does take advantage of the French UU and traits, such as they are.
I also think you will be surprised at how effective the Musketeers are when used "en masse" .
Just imagine a French Revolution where every Frenchman goes postal, grabs a musket and attacks every "foriegner" they can find for about twenty years. (And they say "All for one and one for All" frequently while laughing and fighting lustily and drinking large amounts of good wine.)
Warning: I play vanilla Civ at Monarch- your mileage may vary if you play a higher difficulty or newer version.