Disclaimer: I am from France and now, I am living in the U.S. since 2 years.
This article rings true. Driving in the U.S. is 100 times easier than back in France. The driving test is easy, if there is one! (I lived in Austin, Texas doesn't have anything OR at least doesn't have almost anything that looks like a driving test from a french perpective.)
I've spent something like 3,400 Euros to get my permit back in France, and I've waited maybe 9 months. It's true they are not giving away easily spots for the tests and it's also true that they try to get you doing as much as hours as possible.
Texas most certainly has a driving test (I know, I took it when I was 16 years old). If you gave the Department of Public Safety a France-issued license, Texas deemed you to already know how to drive so it did not require you to take the state test:
"Individuals who hold a valid, unexpired driver license from another U.S. state or U.S. territory, or from Canada, France, South Korea, Germany or Taiwan (the countries Texas has license reciprocity agreements with), do not have to take the knowledge or driving tests."
I guess this is true in many countries (no tests for french driving license holders). I'm french, and didn't have to take a paper test, or a driving test when I got my license in Japan. Which is kind of ridiculous considering they don't even check you know how rules differ between the countries, and there are more than a few differences, the most basic one being default speed limits in the absence of indication.
Anyways, I actually didn't get my french driving license before I was planning to move to Japan, and the reason I did get it is because getting a driving license in Japan is even more expensive than it is in France.
Fwiw, I got my french driving license on the first try after 23 hours of lessons and didn't have any of the problems mentioned. In fact, I had all my paper test preparation with a web site that my driving school was contracting, so besides the freelance instructors, I don't see much innovation in that ornikar thing.
I don't mean to turn this into an argument over the quality of Texas' driving test, just point out that I, too, hold a Texas license and it is my first license. The driving test consisted of approximately two hours of driving near my local DPS office. I had to go through different types of intersections, parallel park, merge onto the freeway, make legal U-turns, signal appropriately (which is to say, all of the time, and is a skill that apparently didn't stick with most of my fellow drivers), stop at the appropriate spot, and so on.
My original point was that if you gave the DPS clerk a French license, you didn't have to do any of that because Texas considers it a license transfer.
This article rings true. Driving in the U.S. is 100 times easier than back in France. The driving test is easy, if there is one! (I lived in Austin, Texas doesn't have anything OR at least doesn't have almost anything that looks like a driving test from a french perpective.)
I've spent something like 3,400 Euros to get my permit back in France, and I've waited maybe 9 months. It's true they are not giving away easily spots for the tests and it's also true that they try to get you doing as much as hours as possible.