Get an anthology like the "French Philosophy in the Twentieth Century" by Gary Gutting.

www.amazon.com/exec/obido...165-4902421

I read similar anthology in French, it is usually a good start.
It is chronological and a quick way to see what is of interest to you.
If you like to go further back with Descartes and Pascal get an older anthology.

Hope this will help.

This is a belated response, but I just now saw your post...My recommendations will naturally focus on those thinkers who are close to my heart.

If you're interested in the French phenomenologists, there are a couple good starting places (putting aside secondary literature).

For Sartre, you might try a collection of essays called "Existentialism and Human Emotions". It is a very slim volume, but it contains his important essay "Existentialism is a Humanism". It's philosophically somewhat thin, but gives you a decent introductory gloss on the basics of Sartre's moral psychology and theory of freedom. If you want to know more about his phenomenology per se, try "On Imagination", an early work which will get you a clear, but more philosophically deep perspective on his phenomenology.

For Merleau-Ponty, the best introductory work hands down is the recently-translated "The World of Perception". It was a series of lectures he gave on French radio, and gives an excellent introduction to not only his basic philosophical perspective, but on the perspective of phenomenology inspired by Heidegger.

If your interest lies more in post-phenomenological French thought, here are a few recommendations.

For Foucault, the best place to start is either very early or very late. "The Order of Things" is clearly presented, and his "History of Sexuality"--especially the third volume, "Care of the Self"--is readable and especially influential on feminism, gender theory, and queer theory.

For Deleuze, try a collection of essays recently published called "Desert Islands and Other Texts", which collects a bunch of interviews, short essays, and transcripts of talks and presentations of Deleuze.

For Lacan, look first at his seminars, many of which have been published in English. He loathed publication, and as a result his published papers come off as gobbledegook. The seminars are word-for-word transcriptions of the courses he taught. Start with seminars I and VII: I gives a good introduction on his baisc perspective on Freud, and VII ("The Ethics of Psychoanalysis") is the source of much contemporary Lacan-inpired political and social thought.

If you want recommendations tooled to your interests, feel free to message me :)

Mandel

if you are still looking for french philosphers and haven't found them yet, read Baudrillard and Bataille. Niether one are easy but they are defenitely french.