You go through 4 years of undergraduate work at a University and pick your major to be French.

Typically I would recommend studying abroad during your 3rd year for the ENTIRE year. You get the same credits you need studying abroad and it totally immerses you into their culture and language.

After you finish your 3rd year of undergrad studies, I would take your GRE tests, or prepare for them. They will allow you to continue on to get your Master’s Degree in French and enter a different University.

Your Master’s will take you 2 years and during those 2 years you can get a stipend (hopefully) from the University to live on. When you get a stipend or scholarship, you most probably end up teaching beginning French classes for that University, to help out the French Professor. It gives you skills and molds you into a teacher.

During your 2nd year of your Master’s degree I would recommend going back to France for another complete year to study abroad, or at least a semester (spring would be best because it’s a longer semester).

After your Master’s Degree, you will have coursework for 2 more years. After this the only thing you have to do is write your doctoral thesis, typically on a topic that has interested you the past 7 years.

My friend did hers on a comparison between two German playwrights.

Again, it’s up to you but right now, you just seem to be looking for the steps it will take to be a French Professor.