Does knowing Lingua Franca Nova help one learn French?

That was a question that came up a day ago here:

I myself was wondering how much French can be understood from learning this LFN language and if it is possible can one switch to learning French much easier once one has a great basic grasp of LFN?

The short answer is yes, except for the part about having a "basic grasp" of LFN. The reason why is that a basic grasp of LFN only takes anywhere from a few hours to a few days; that is, to reach the point where you can start writing basic texts with the help of a dictionary. This however doesn't provide any help with learning Romance languages. What will help with learning other Romance languages is a fluent grasp of LFN: being able to converse and write articles on the fly with almost no recourse to a dictionary, because it's only by that point that you'll have internalized the vocabulary enough that it starts to become useful in recognizing other languages as well.

To give an example of how LFN looks compared to French, I've done up a quick translation of the article on the Main Page of the French Wikipedia right now, on the Icelandic island of Surtsey:

French	Lingua Franca Nova
Surtsey est une île volcanique située sur la côte sud de l'Islande.	Surtsey es un isola volcanal situada sur la costa sude de Island.
Elle s'est formée à la suite d'une éruption volcanique qui a commencé à 130 mètres sous le niveau de la mer et a atteint la surface le 14 novembre 1963.	El ia es formada seguente un eruta de un volcan ce ia comensa 130 metres su la nivel de la mar, e ia estende la surfas 14 novembre 1963.
L'éruption a dû commencer quelques jours plus tôt et s'est terminée le 5 juin 1967.	La eruta ia comensa alga dias ante, e ia fini 5 junio 1967.
C'est à ce moment que l'île a atteint 2,7 km2, sa superficie maximale, avec un sommet culminant à 173 mètres d'altitude.	En esa momente el ia estende 2.7 km2, se area masima, con un culmine de 173 metres de altia.
Depuis, en raison de l'érosion due au vent et aux vagues, l'île a diminué de taille pour ne plus atteindre que 1,4 km2 en 2005.	Pos, a causa de la erode fada par venta e ondas, la isola ia diminui se grandia e no estende plu ce 1.4 km2 en 2005.
De surcroît elle a perdu en altitude par l'érosion, par le compactage des couches sédimentaires sous-jacentes et à moindre degré par l'isostasie de la lithosphère.	A plu, el ia perde en altia par erode, par la presa de stratos de deponeda su el, e en un min grado par la isostada* de la litosfera.
Dès son apparition, l'île fut étudiée par de nombreux volcanologues et, depuis la fin de l'éruption, elle est l'objet de l'intérêt des botanistes et des biologistes car la vie a colonisé l'île peu à peu. En 2001, le gouvernement islandais a présenté l'île à l'UNESCO en vue d'être listée comme un site du patrimoine mondial. Elle est interdite au public ; seuls sont admis les scientifiques.	A la tempo de se apare, la isola ia es studiada par numeros vulcanolojistes e, de la fini de la eruta, el es un ojeto de interesa de botanistes* e biolojistes car vita coloni la isola grado par grado. En 2001, la governa de Island ia presenta la isola a UNESCO per es listada como un loca de erita mundal. El es proibida a la publico; sola siensistes es permeteda entra.
Son nom signifie en islandais « l'île de Surtur », le Vulcain ou géant du feu de la mythologie nordique.	Se nom sinia en la lingua Islandal "la isola de Surtur", la Volcan o jigante de foco de la mitolojia nordic*.

You can see a large number of words that exist in French and LFN but not in English: nivel, culmine, venta, diminui, perde, mundal, etc.

The question of course is what one's plans are for the near future. For someone making the trip to France in a few months, by all means only go with French. For someone with an interest in French but with no friends nearby/concrete plans to learn it, or with perhaps an interest in other Romance languages as well, LFN could be a good choice. It's only worth it if you take it to a certain level of fluency though, because it's only at that time that the words begin to gel inside your head and LFN changes from an interesting project into a real language.

That reminds me, it might be a good idea to create a chat room on chatzy.com for LFN as well. I've never seen a chat in LFN carried out in real-time before, and it could help show the language as a real means of communication for sometime in the future if we ever feel like applying for its own Wikipedia again (I don't expect that to happen for a while though, and to be honest LFN is doing just fine without one).