You almost said it all or so it seems. Then, things are pretty much the same in France. If you are stuck with a bad officer, you are in a bad situation. I saw that during my service. The other company was commanded by a dummy (well educated but still a dummy). that Lieutenant was unable to get anything from his recruits. He was not even able to understand that they were keeping making fun of him. He was from Polytechnique (a school forming technicians and engineers: saddly these guys are all officers) and half of his company was composed of guys from the Reunion speaking Creole (fun, fun, fun).
The only exception might be with the Legion were things are slightly different: There are very little chance for a skill/trained Legionaire to obey a fresh/inexperienced officer from another branch. of course, he will serve that officer the usual "Yes Sirr!!" but he will not comply when in the middle of action (actually he might even tell him fuck off if needs rise). A few month ago, we were watching (my wife and I) some report on the french military: 1 on the legion immediately followed by 1 on St Cyr. Ok, St Cyr is training our officers but we definitely could see more in any of the Legionaires. Actually, the officers in training (and even their training officers) were looking like amateurs when compared to the Legionaires.
However, I'm not convinced that officers from the navy/air force forced to serve in the infantry would be the worse. They might be more willing to confess/admit their little experience. After all, they are not fully trained for that job.
Concerning basic infantry training, we also have it. This is fairly limited, however, and non-infantry will need to survive some times in order to get some much needed experience. Not to mention that older guys like me don't always know how to use modern weapons. I'm perfectly skilled with a MAT-49 and I learned how to use a grenade (rifle, I learned for myself) but I don't know anything about FAMAS.
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