Originally Posted by
wrk101
In other French brands, yes, absolutely. In the case of Motobecane, not in my experience. I have had several 1977 Motobecanes, all had Swisss BB. And I have had later 1970s, all the way up to 1982 with Swiss BBs.
Just one guy's experience, having owned a couple of dozen Motobecanes.
It looks like I'm wrong on the dates but I believe that Motobecane did use French at one time but then broke with the other French companies to start using Swiss sometime in the 70s. This is from the Wiki entry:
"Unlike most French makers of the era, Motobecane used Swiss thread bottom brackets for most models."
I read somewhere on BF that the early Motos used French but that could have been a mistake. Certainly Motos used swiss more broadly than did other French manufacturers and it is in theory a better design.