To get the first thing out of the way: I thought FB was a French company founded by an Italian expatriate. Chuck, do you have any info to the contrary?
French bikes - indeed there were so many. I bought a collection of two dozen headbadges, where I don't know a single maker! Every town had their small builder or two. Some bought in the frames, added their own braze-ons, paint and decals, and you got your custom bike. Others made them all in their shop. These could be quite nice and interesting, sometimes with racks brazed to the frame and other special touches. Then there were a couple of dozen true "constructeurs" who built true custom bikes complete with racks, etc. Singer and Herse were and are considered the top guys, but some of that was due to good publicity - Herse always had his riders in the top 10 of Paris-Brest-Paris, while Singer did well in the technical trials. Routens also remains well-known - he won PBP 3 times on his tandem, beating all the single bikes.
A few pre-war makers didn't make it back to glory after the war for various reasons, among them Barra with aluminum frames for bikes and tandems, as well as Reiss (sp? with his Reyhand brand (who died in the war).
Somehow, in France the big makers (Peugeot, Motobecane, etc.) never got such a tight grip on the market that there was no room for the small makers. Anywhere you go in France, you will see interesting bikes locked to railroad station fences, parked in front of cafes or in use. Even the "lowly" bikes often had cantilever brakes, braze-ons for derailleurs and other nice touches. Obviously, the very expensive equipment, like Maxi-Car hubs, TA pedals, etc. was used only on expensive bikes, which is why they are so rare today.
It all seems to have been over by the mid-1950s, when the Citroen 2CV replaced bicycles as a status symbol in transportation. I wonder how many shops closed during that time...
Of course, that doesn't mean there weren't dozens of makers left, but those seem to have been either the top-of-the-line guys like Singer, Herse and Routens, or the mass-producers like Lejeune, Bertin, Motobecane, Peugeot, etc.
What about today's constructeurs? I know of Singer, Berthoud, Follis, and Rando-Cycles, each with a different take on what a modern (or not so modern) randonneur or camping bike should be. I am sure there are others...
Jan Heine, Seattle