Steak is at its most tender when it is cooked medium rare to medium, which is how a chef will cook it by default.
I used to have a lot of fun in France where my ex-wife liked her steak well done as a French chef's idea of well done with another 10 seconds cooking each side, when she would send it back was not my ex-wifes. After 3 or 4 attempts she would give up and just eat round the outside, so I always ended up with another half a steak. 
On one of my trips to the US, one restaurant I went to had marinated raw beef as a starter, very nice it was too. 
As I like my meat dead, I struggle with this modern, stupid idea of undercooking meat. Pubs that are trying to be resturants are the worse offenders. You can even order it "I want it burnt to a crisp" and it will come out bleeding, just because the "chef" (an undertrained cook) thinks its trendy. Each to their own, we all like things done differently, I just get frustrated at this relatively recent trend of rarer food = more upmarket/exclusive, moreso when it means that I have to say that I want my steak so badly burnt, that they'll need the fire brigade. Then still end up sending it back to be cooked properly.
If I was cynical, I'd say it was due to piss-poor quality steak, so it needs to be rarer to stop it being like old leather. Hence why I said that even when properly cooked, it was still melt-in-mouth tender

As for the French, they can't cook steak. Learnt that one early one, yet always seem to try it every year "just one more time". Actually, that said, the French can't really cook much
