What's with all the zooms?

Yes, I do. They were trying to give the film a sense of surveillance, as though the camera just happened onto the scene. It's a technique that was also used in 1960's documentaries. Another technique of cinematographer Owen Roizman, in this film is his use of rack focusing. That is, finding the focus while the action is happening. These photographic devices, which are used judiciously in THE FRENCH CONNECTION have become ostentatious in films like the BOURNE series, where zooms and jump cuts are used randomly, and in my opinion, inappropriately.

I'm crazy about the zooms in this movie. It's one of the greatest looking American films ever.

I would tend to also believe because of the low budget and no sets, they didn't have good crowd control.
have you noticed many of the pedestrians in some walking scenes looking at the camera ?
that's a giveaway.
I absolutely love movies of that nature where they try and film in the unadulterated natural environment.

In the director's commentary, Friedkin said he didn't have a large budget and wanted to have a documentary style look to the film.

The zooming in and out was for economy of shots. It wasn't too bad because he didn't do it too many times and when he did it, it made sense.

Thus there were also few dolly shots (the cameraman was in a wheel chair) and there were lottsa hand held shots both of which made for some camera jitter.

I personally like the rough look of the film.

Helpful as always, wrfarley!