France wasn't that unique, you can draw a lot of parallels with its Revolution and the one throughout Britain the previous century.

Both were essentially reactionary movements against increasingly absolutist kings. Of course, absolutism preceeded both Louis XVI and Charles I of the British Civil War, but these two figures lacked the tact to get away with it.

And what were both rebellions at first termed in conservative language (to limit the king to his proper powers) turned into much more radical republican movements that resulted in what were arguably tyrannies.

As to why all this happened later in France, probably the fact that it was less economically developed than England had something to do with it, so it took longer for the middle-classes to develop and push for their place in the political system. Plus kicking the Huguenots out probably helped delay things, Richard Baxter gives a good contemporary account of how the French merchants and such like adopted the Reformed religion and its associated political theories regarding the limited rights of King's etc (eg Hotman's 'Francogallia' for the French)... so when they were massacred or expelled to the Netherlands/England then France lost a potential revoutionary 'class' as Marx would say.