There’s a lot of old 4 core cables around that have two blacks, one brown, & earth, or 5 core (with blue added).
No, France never used the old L1 Red, L2 Yellow, L3 Blue, & Black neutral like the UK did.
It’s not uncommon to find 3 reds or blacks inside a distribution board, but labelled per phase.
Multiple phases with the same colour sounds like fun.
Not.
When we first started re-wiring our present house, and the previous one, we had three white wires for the phases…and another white for neutral.
Lovely…sounds like some wiring I dealt with in Moscow.
Here in France I came across a place that had used blue wiring for lighting, red for power/sockets (yes, phase & neutral in the same colours) apart from where they had used jaune/vert for switching & the odd 2 pin outlet.
When I bought my house there were wires with silky thread wound around them and no plastic, and also weird bakelite tubes.
I can relate to that, ours had tarred hemp wound round the outside, the wiring in the outhouses were done in whatever drum of cable they had lying around,.
3 red and earth going in and out, 3 black or yellow and earth going in and out, one 15m earth cable coiled up attached to an earth spike in the roof space, another into concrete not the earth, it was a real voyage of discovery 
All these comments and some of you should understand why I asked the pertinent question. I believe in doing things correctly otherwise not doing them until I or someone else is able to! This should give you an idea of how I do things if you have not already seen it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6cEa-pX-tNs
So are you a ‘real’ (ie French qualified) electrician? Apologies if you have said elsewhere.
I suspect not as he said that he does it correctly (ducks and runs for cover) 
More seriously, some of the wiring in my house is pretty poor and it was done by a professional. It all looks great superficially but a little bit of digging finds a lot of corners being cut and not always safely.
It used to really bug me in the UK that I couldn’t legally do much electrical work but mine was of a much higher level of workmanship than that of the ‘professionals’ who did the build.
I wonder if your insurance will cough up, should something go wrong, if you aren’t a ‘real’ electrician. I wonder if they might use that as an excuse to avoid coughing up for anything that went wrong and caused any damage at all of any nature, in the house.
If it’s done properly and to the normes then it should never be the cause of a fire and shouldn’t be an issue.
As I intimated, I’m more concerned by the work that was previously done by an “electrician” such as this which I posted a few weeks ago.
Oh I agree - it shouldn’t. BUT I’d just be interested to know if an insurance company would pay up* in the case of something going wrong, if the work is done by somebody no matter how skilled, who isn’t a registered electrician (insert relevant corps de métier). Aux normes would mean presumably signed off by the consuel?
*I bet they wouldn’t.
Edited to add I’m sure there are plenty of registered electricians who are rubbish, I wouldn’t know, I’m not casting any aspersions at expert unregistered electricians, I’m just interested in the practicalities.
I bet they would unless directly the cause and the error was very wrong. So many houses in france still have appalling electrics and even around me seen 4-5 house fires from old wiring and those were paid out
Yes but those were presumably due to preexisting wiring? I mean if anyone can do whatever, why do artisans have to have assurance and garantie decennale?
A proper professional will state in/on their facture that the works covered by said facture conform to the version of NF C 15-100 in force at the date of the accepted devis.
CONSUEL would not be involved, unless the work had to be passed prior to a branchement définitif being made live, although a client could pay them to inspect if they wished.
Because they are the 3rd person. Owners can almost do what they want. Yes its worrying, A certain level of knowledge needs to be there and those that ask questions showing a lack of basic knowledge should best stay well clear. Thats not the same as asking for clarification as in this thread.
I understand that sometimes they’ll even turn up. I was actually happy to pay to have some work done but gave up on trying to actually get a devis.
