If France had to go down the strongman route, there were better options and better policies. Gramsci was just wrong to include Napoleon in the company of Julius Caesar, to distinguish against Bismarck and Louis Bonaparte.
The radicalization of the French Revolution went to the point where the sans culottes demanded the restriction of "universal" suffrage to just those of the sans culottes (and thus a reinterpretation of The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen away from qualifying just property owners). This preceded the Bolshevik disenfranchisement of capitalists, middlemen traders, priests, etc. This also probably went to the point where the peasantry called for the abolition of private property in land.
It was not outside the realm of possibility that France could have had a socially radical, and politically revolutionary, people's elected, non-hereditary, de facto monarchy ("monarchy" in the non-hereditary Greek sense). This strong figure could have come from a sans culottes social background and, like Napoleon, from a military career background. This strong figure could also have had someone just like Fouche for heading internal security. This strong figure could also have inaugurated something like the Napoleonic Code.
However, pro-peasant dealings with secular landlords and the Church could have gone the route of Vlad the Impaler, redirecting the Reign of Terror. The National Assembly could have been given more prominence because of sans culottes radicalism.
In terms of foreign affairs, Fraternite could have been taken more seriously, as anti-feudal ideals spread across the Continent in spite of British opposition. Germany, Italy, etc. could have become unified much sooner, and each a constitutional republic at that. Haiti could have been left alone.
