French here, never heard of any connection with werewolves. Only that it was either an immense wolf or possibly a hyena brought who-knows-how from Africa.
Note from a dive in the rabbit hole of the French Wikipedia page: it seems it was truly a wolf which was - according to its autopsy - 1m long "from the base of its tail to the top of its head" and weighed more than 50kg.
Also, nowhere is it said people believed the beast to be a werewolf.
A reminder that headlines that start with an interrogative pronoun usually have little substance.