bikingshearer 

Bulgie 100% correct about the challenges of working on French bikes from the 1970s. To be clear, however, there is nothing inherently wrong or bad with French stuff, and Gitane sold good bikes within their respective price ranges. It's just that the French had lost the thread-standardization wars by the end of the1980s. In terms of sales, Japanese companies (Suntour and especially Shimano) started crushing pretty much everyone, but especially the French, in OEM parts, and the Japanese had adopted the British threading standards years before. (The Italians also had their own threading standards that still survive because Campagnolo survived, primarily because of its reputation with high-end racers and the trickle-down effect of that). Bottom line: don't take any of bulgie's warning as indications that French-threaded parts are bad - they aren't - just that they are relatively uncommon and you have to make a special effort to find them.