You'd be surprised on how reasonably priced many houses are in France when you look 20mins or so outside everywhere, except Paris/Lyon/Bordeaux/Nice. You can find a nice 3-4br, 2-3ba 20-30mins west of Montpellier for 325-400k CDN. If you want something a bit smaller, 2br and 2ba for 250-300k CDN.
My wife and I are thinking about visiting the Montpellier-Pezenas-Biziers-Agde area this March on a factfinding trip to see it if fits the bill for winter retirement.