I'm going for a BA History and while doing some quick research in my free time on the French navy in the 17th and 18th century I discovered that all their major ports seem to have been located either on their southern or western coasts, facing away from England, rather than on the Channel facing towards England (like how the English had Plymouth and Portsmouth facing France).

Were there any geographical or meteorological hindrances on France's northern coast that prevented them from building more major ports there? (sandbanks, lack of sheltered ports, stronger tides, unpredictable weather, anything really...). And if there are any such reasons why didn't these hinder the English ports on the opposite side of the Channel?

It seems really weird to me since when you look at France's northern coast on a map it looks like there are dozens of harbours great to shelter ships at (St. Paul-de-Léon, Lannion, Paimpol, St.-Brieuc, St.-Malo, Mont-St.-Michel, Bréhal, and on and on it goes)

(I also asked this question on /askhistorians, /meteorology, /geography and /oceanography to get answer from as wide an a range of people as possible, if you know other subreddits that might provide an answer please suggest them to me)