As someone who has also spoken French their entire life; I disagree. Is French orthography messy? Sure, but it's a consistent mess. Like the other commenter said, once you know "eau" is pronounced "o", you know. Un beau bateau sur l'eau.

Contrast with English, where rough & thorough thought is required throughout tough sentences such as this one just to figure out what the Fuck sound "gh" will make.

I really came to appreciate the difference in English and French when I used to work in pharmacies; my first job was in a French place, and I intuitively knew how to pronounce drug names at first encounter.

I later worked in a place with only Anglophones and I never got the prononciation on the first try. It was a guessing game.