The Spidel component group was a near to a groupset as the French cycle accessory industry ever got, although there was an attempt, basically by Simplex some years later - the Stratec group -and just before they finally went bankrupt.
traditionally most French cycle accessory manufacturers were specialists in more or less one accessory eg Mafac in brakes, Stronglight in chainsets, Simplex in gears. Faced with the growing impetus of other manufacturers such as Shimano and Campagnolo towards producing full groupsets, a group of French manufacturers, none of whom had the manufacturing capacity or the know-how to produce its own groupsets, decided to coordinate their efforts into a top-end French groupset - the SPIDEL range being the result. The companies involved were Simplex, Stronglight, Mafac, Maillard (freewheels, hubs and pedals) To a lesser extent Ideale was marginally involved as was Super Champion. I think Modolo became involved when Mafac went bust. I have two Peugeot team bikes from 1979/79 - Regis Delapines's 753 Pro bike, and Jean-Louis Danguillaume's 531 Pro model. The specs are almost identical except for the brakes, - Delapine chose the Mafac side-pull type already mentions..much like a Modolo, while Danguillaume chose the Mafac centre-pulls with the brazed on studs, like Thevenet used. Danguillaume was faithful to Maillard's small flange 700 series hubs, but Delapine was allowed to use....Campag L/f Record ones.
There was another French grouping involving Huret, Nervar, Perrin Pelissier and CLB, but this one never managed to attract the top riders to use their products. Possibly this was something to do with sponsorship deals..certainly Hinault won the Tour once on Spidel components..but using Ambrosio rims!
I think that the SPIDEL partnership and groupset was launched around 1981
Norris Lockley Settle UK