[Free Talk]

[Celef]

Well for the well known and actual I'de say :
- Jean-Jacques Goldman : His voice is...well lets say "special" but his text are really beautifull most of the time (he also wrote one of Celine Dion Album called "d'eux" which is, according to wikipedia, called "the french album" in US, a piece of art in the writting *.*).

- Stromae, not a not a french singer but he does sing in french and has beautifull text too, like the well know "Papaoute" or "formidable"

- Zazie also did a couple of nice songs, like for example "Je suis un homme" "Zen" or "A ma place" feat Axel Bauer

You should also try :
Linda Lemay "le plus fort c'est mon père" always makes me cry
Daniel Balavoine : The guy was a poet with "l'Aziza" or "Mon fils ma bataille"....not sure he even did a song that was not beautifull xD
Angun : I really like "La neige au Sahara" and "Etre une femme"

I just hope you understand french more than just a little bit cause those artists might be difficult to understand for non native (and even for native sometimes xD)

In facts, most of french people/speakers doesn't listen to french songs anymore. A large amount of french artist started to sing in english a few years ago, and yet the only french singers that still sing in french aren't that popular or have a huge carreer as singer behind them (which means a huge fanbase too).

And i'll add that, nowaday, we do not really have "good" artist, it's most of the time, the same thing again and again and again :/