Rabbits are largely seen as food here
As Gemmapookie says, they are a food. I know plenty of French people who keep them in hutches in their gardens, breeding rabbits as they would chickens for the pot.
This is a typical set up on our local buy/sell website: Depressing, huh?
I acquired Muppette because a neighbour's son had got bored with her and when she escaped from her makeshift run and cardboard box hutch (yes, really) from the side of her drive, she took up residence in our veg garden for the summer. There she proved herself excellent at harvesting the French beans, lettuces, radishes, carrots, etc but absolutely no good at weeding. When the weather got cold last year, I "rescued" her... and she proved that she was certainly female by depositing a litter of 4 kits. What a surprise. :roll:
She now lives with one of her daughters, Gingernut, in a reasonabe sized enclosed run and hutch with passing chickens, sheep and cats for company. I plan to give her daytime access to an even larger run in the spring.
Rabbit savvy vets... we found a vets that would spay (200 euros per rabbit because they use two vets per op, one to operate and one to monitor anaesthesia) but I think if I had to go in with a case of head tilt or similar, I would have to research here first and go in with information for them.
Vaccinations are available - myxi is in the general area and I have a friend who is nursing her best breeding (for meat) doe through it at the moment. I'm sure the vet thinks she's mad.
Rabbit food (pellets, hay, etc) is easy - because plenty of people breed them for meat. However, I have access to unlimited supplies of mixed pasture, hayfields etc so I forage twice a day for them and we have straw and good quality hay for the sheep so the rabbits get plenty of hay too.
I only know of a few British people with rabbits as pets - generally not something French people do. They cost about 35 - 40 euros in the pet department of the local garden centres. When I got talking to the manager of the local garden centre, she said they don't supply any info sheets with their rabbits (or gerbils, hamsters, guinea pigs) because why should they? It's the responsibility of the people buying the rabbit. She disputed any need to have two rabbits together for company. She also poo-poo-ed my question about sterilisation - if you have one, you don't need to sterilise. You British people want to sterilise everything. Your dogs, your cats, your horses... and now your rabbits.
I've no idea about rabbit-specific rescues in the area but most of the SPAs (RSPCA equivalents) and animal refuges take smaller pets like rabbits, guinea pigs etc.