I speak both French and German, and I have to say that I cannot choose one as "better" than the other. They both have their pluses and their minuses.
Positives for French would be: very international, used in about half of Africa as well as France, Belgium, Switzerland, Quebec, New Brunswick and Haiti. Used the world over by hotel staffs (English is first, French is second), great for ordering in restaurants and for pronouncing the names of gourmet dishes correctly. Lots of terminology in the fashion industry and interior decorating industry comes from French as well. Because of the Norman invasion of England back in 1066, there is a plethora of French vocabulary in modern English. The National Motto of England is still in French "Dieu et mon droit" (God and my rights) and the state motto of Minnesota is still in French L'Etoile du Nord (Star of the North). Also, lest we forget Francophone Louisiana where a lot of French is spoken even today. When you cross the border into Louisiana, the sign says "Bienvenue a La Louisiane! Welcome to Louisiana! So there are lots of historical reasons to study French. In addition, when you consider that the French helped the United States during the American Revolution (Battle of Yorktown) and that the French gave the United States the Statue of Liberty, and that almost half of the United States was purchased from France (thank Thomas Jefferson), there are a lot of reasons why an American might be motivated to study French.
Negatives for French: spelling and pronunciation can be difficult at times because of all the silent letters. French grammar can be complicated at times because you learn the rule, then there are at least 50 to 75 verbs that are the exception to it. French sounds beautiful to a point, but it can get rather nasal at times and if you have ever been to France, some French can sound almost as guttural as German, esp. Parisian French. (I find the French spoken around Lyons to be smoother and more melodious to the ear).
German can be a fun language to learn, if one approaches it objectively and without prejudice, and without filtering everything through the filter of National Socialism and American movies about the Second World War. So many people say German is an "ugly" language, but many of the people that say that have only heard little bits of German here and there in American WWII movies where people were screaming "Mach schnell!" or" Ja, mein Fuehrer!"
German is such an ancient language. You can hear the Vikings and Beowulf in it. If you've ever read Chaucer's Canterbury Tales you can see a lot of the German word order and verb forms that were preserved even into Middle English. Dutch and Flemish are very closely related to German. In fact, a knowledge of German even makes learning the Scandinavian languages of Danish, Swedish and Norwegian easier, since the basic vocabulary is very similar in many instances.
There is no getting around the "ugliness" of German if by "ugliness" one means guttural sounds. German will never have the smoothness of French. Secondly because German is a "constant heavy" language, it will never have the "bounce" to it that Italian, Spanish or Greek have because it doesn't have the pattern of constant-vowel-constant-vowel.
There is a wonderful concreteness to German, especially in the way that it creates new words. For example, hand in German is Hand. Shoes in German are Schuhe. Gloves, therefore, in German are Handschuhe, literally "handshoes." Other examples of concrete German words are:
Dictionary = Wortbuch (literally, word book)
Philosopher = Denker (literally, thinker)
Television = Fernsehenapparat (literally, far-seeing apparatus)
Suicide = Selbstmord (literally, self-murder)
Carpenter = Zimmermann (literally, room man, or man who builds rooms)
And when German is sung, much of the strong gutteralness is toned down and softened.
That's about it.
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