I looked at the photo, and noticed a few things:
1. Mike is correct, the brakes look a lot like early Barra cantilever brakes.
2. The bike does appear to have a fixed seat height (the seat tube extends upward and the saddle is attached directly to that). Barra did that quite often, but so did other makers.
3. The seatstay attachment on the seat cluster does not look like Barra. Compare to p. 91 in "The Golden Age of Handbuilt Bicycles." The Barra seatstays curve inward and attach to the center of the seat tube. Robic's extend further forward. Rene Vietto's Barra from the 1948 Tour de France in Cycle History No. 12 (p. 163) has the same cluster - as does every Barra I have seen.
4. Barra usually used a direct-clamp stem, whereas Robic's bike has a traditional expander type.
5. The two handlebar pinch bolts were done by many builders - Barra, Singer, Daudon and others.
So not a Barra, and not even sure it's aluminum.
A few more notes:
6. No rubber handrests: At least in France, Mafac pioneered the rubber hand rests around 1949. Prototypes were used in the 1948 Paris-Brest-Paris. Many bikes through the 1950s did not use them.
7. Is that a Maxi-Car rear hub? Also appears to be attached with nuts, not wingnuts or QR. Perhaps because if you have a flat in cross, you just get a new bike?
Jan Heine
Editor/Publisher
Vintage Bicycle Quarterly
c/o Il Vecchio Bicycles
140 Lakeside Ave, Ste. C
Seattle WA 98122
http://www.vintagebicyclepress.com