The law you’re talking about, about this controversy of the lights of the Eiffel Tower, does not address the right to the image (“droit à l’image”), but “droit d’auteur” (author’s right) which is another thing. In France, “droit d’auteur” is significantly different from copyright in force in the US, for instance, even if in many respects it is similar.
The “droit à l’image” is something else since it is not about a work but about the image of the person (or one of its properties of which he is not the author such as his house, his car, his dog or whatever he owns). It’s related to privacy which, I know, is not protected the same way here and there.
I agree with you on the fact that this law on “le droit à l’image” is quite criticable, and in my opinion even children should be allowed to be photographed, otherwise we would not have any of the works of big names in photography representatives, I think immediately of Doisneau, Cartier-Bresson, Sabine Weiss, list to complete… almost infinitely. Or else, just their own children (Gene Smith is in my mind).
And then if we start saying “children, no” why not then “police, no”, “disabled, no”, etc, etc.
I believe that what is good in this law is the aspect “not to have a degrading use for the subject”. It remains to define precisely “degrading use”, and here… 