The French guy lunged at a ball he was never going to be able to control, whereas the English one was at body height and when watched at full speed wasn’t far off completing the intercept. Why would a winger wanting to cement his place in the team deliberately knock on if that intercept would also have given him the chance to run and possibly score?
Either way, the law is pretty silly when applied like it was to both sides today. There have been blatant ones in the past (I seem to remember Ireland vs Wales a couple of years back where the ball was deliberately palmed into tough at the death preventing a clear try-scoring opportunity) that should indeed be punished. But both knock-ons today were bona-fide attempted intercepts, no matter how optimistic they may appear from the luxury of an armchair.
If that starts making players think twice about attempting intercepts, there’ll be fewer tries from both attackers and defenders. A missed intercept means a gap in the defensive line, and a successful one almost always means a try-scoring opportunity. With the exception of cynical attempts to knock the ball out of play, it should just be treated as a knock on. I don’t see too much difference with the rules about charge-downs tbh.
