ok rosy, i've been skiin in France for 14 years, since i was 4 cos i am british and its too expensive to go to usa all the time, but i'm movin to mammoth in december.
Neways, if you want a rustic ski town, chamonix is the only one that was a real town before french people started building ski towns, so its pretty old, nice town, and it is featured in loads of ski films (blizzard of aahhs, 1242)
if you want assured good snow you wanna go to a high resort like tignes, val d'isere, les 2 alpes as they have glaciers and all year round snow.
i have never been to serre chevalier but my friend lives there and from photos it looks rad.
it depends what you want to ride, park or pow. you could hire a car and do a roadtrip, i've done a few summer and winter and they are rad, plus if you're under 21 u can still get wasted all the time.
shabba
if its not steezy, don't bother.
Duty Free rock