The British between the 18th century wars and the Napoleonic Wars cut the French Empire down to a token shadow of itself. Why didn't Britain similarly confront the French during their second round of empire-building in the 19th century, especially the last quarter of the 19th century when they started racking up territorial gains at a very fast rate, were building up their navy and designing explicitly anti-British naval doctrines?
After all, if German naval and colonial expansion is what caused British hostility and the related policy of anti-German Ententes, why didn't Britain do unto France earlier what it later did to Germany? Especially when you look and see a much bigger French empire on the map and even more points of overlapping/conflicting interests in between the British and French colonial empires than between either of the two and the much smaller German colonial empire.
Finally, in an alternate timeline where the French voluntarily *chose* to not paint so much of the world map purple (No Jules Ferry, no ability of clericalists & Republicans to agree on the same colonial venture, something like that.)
In that alternate timeline, would most threads about a hypothetical French Indochina or French Africa meet a response on AH.com of:
a) the British wouldn't be too happy about that (hinting they'd successfully oppose it)
b) the British would never allow it.