To randomly place the”Au Debut” 11 French blocks, drag them one at a time from the French Setup deck to their starting locales until all 11 are placed. You will find it easier to do this if you zoom the map out one level.
The shuffled French Setup deck is located at the top of the map, below the “Au Debut” box.
To randomly place the”Reinforts” 8 French blocks, drag them one at a time from the French Reinforts deck to the 3 holding boxes labeled, “Sale”, “Tortona” abd “Novi”.
The shuffled French Reinfort deck is located at the top right corner of the map
If you have trouble "grabbing" a block off the deck, try clicking near the bottom of the deck instead of the top.
When you are finished setting up the French blocks, press the blue "flip" button on the buttonbar to turn all your French blocks face down.