Moreover, even if you concede that there's a single algorithm at one point in time, there's still not a single algorithm since the Google search result you get

Moreover, even if you concede that there's a single algorithm at one point in time, there's still not a single algorithm since the Google search result you get today will be the result of a different algorithm than the one that determined the result of the same query last week. It's not only necessary for the French government to ask how the algorithm works, but they'll need a daily changelog or the algorithm description will become stale quite quickly.