- In France, water-filled fire extinguishers are often labeled as "AB-class" ("Eau Pulvérisée avec Additif" litt. Pulverized water with additive) as they contain an additive for B-class fires. Though A-only extinguishers (known as "Eau Pure" or pure water) do exist but for very specific applications.
- There are two types of extinguisher mechanisms recognized in France: Pression Permanente (PP = "Permanant Pressure" and Pression Auxiliaire (PA = Auxiliary Pressure)
"Permanant Pressure" extinguishers are constantly under pressure and often have a pressure gauge. Once you push the handle, they activate immediately.
"Auxiliary Pressure" extinguishers need to be pressurized first by pushing the handle down (or striking a "button" down on some models), upon the handle being pushed down, a cartridge inside the extinguisher will pressurize the unit, after doing that you may use the second "trigger" on the extinguisher's hose.
Auxiliary pressure extinguishers don't have a gauge, have a second "trigger" on the hose and often can be dismantled for filling and maintenance. - Sometimes you can find extinguishers from a known manufacturer relabeled by the company who installed them (ROT and Andrieu does that commonly)
- AB-class extinguishers can be either "Prémélange" (where the additive is mixed into the water) or have a canister with the additive agent inside that will rupture upon the extinguisher being pressurized. One manufacturer (Andrieu) uses a special Co2 pressurization cartridge that contains CO2 and the additive agent inside, this is known as a "Sparklet Zeon
"
- Extinguishers in France comes in two major sizes: 6 lites or 9 litres for water (known as E6 and E9), 6kg and 9kg for ABC/BC powder (known as P6 and P9). Uncommon sizes include P50 (50 kilos powder), P4 (4kg powder) and P2 (2kg). For water extinguishers I've never seen anything but E6 and E9.
First we got an Eurofeu Eurotech, this one is actually in my collection (yes I started collecting fire extinguishers), it's a E6 dated from 2015. Funnily enough, I found this extinguisher discarded in a dumpster:
Then there is this Sicli Eclipse P2 that I got from my uncle, this extinguisher is probably the oldest I have in my collection:
Last but not least, a small E6 Parflam that I have seen somewhere in Chambly, I do not know if it's a rebadged unit or if Parflam made it themselves: