French=Metric?
Though the International measurement system originated in France during the revolution it is no longer under French control... The International system has evolved greatly since it's beginning in 1790. It was created to unify the several measurement systems in use in France at the time.
The base unit, the meter, was decreed to be the 10 000 000th part of the Paris meridian between the north pole and the equator... there was no precise way to measure this so a standard meter was devised and kept for reference.
The beauty of the metric system are it's simplicity, it's decimalization and the fact that all units are tied together.
Only the best of the system survived... there was a 400° compass, a revolutionary calendar and other facets that were not kept.
It's simplicity, precision and the need for a world-wide measurement system have made it over time the international system. There are presently three countries in the world still officially using other measurement systems: Burma Liberia and the USA. Though the US congress passed a law in 1866 allowing the metric system as a legal measurement in all contracts and legal documents and others more recently trying to convert to IS, the resistance to change has been stronger than common sense.
Of course, the IS is used a lot in the US... all science, NASA, liter pop bottles, geodetic surveys, all import and export etc...
Even US built Beneteau sailboats have tons of metric parts and a few SAE so you need to have both sets of tools on board!
Burma has decided to go metric in June 2011; some day Liberia end maybe the US will follow, then we will have only one set of tools.