Check the small print

[L Austin France]

Seventeen years ago I bought 3 Ha of land with a wreck of a house which required virtualy everything renewing/rebuilding. There was no internet except a feeble dial up service so no help available there regarding regs etc & my french was rubbish so common sense & lots of pictures were my guide.
None the less I rewired & replumbed the place , amongst other building things, & checking over the years, when the information available in the web evolved along with my french, I seem to have got most things pretty much correct as the regs demanded at that time..
Recenty I had doubts as to the polarity of several sockets so I checked every one of a almost 60 , including doubles, sockets in the house & barn & found that probably one third were wired with live & neutral transposed.
I was helped by a mate to second fix the sockets & when I began the process of correcting the problem I found it appeared that my mate, although wiring to the correct L & N markings on the sockets, had not adhered to the convention of L on right when viewing the face of the socket.
On checking I found that every socket I had bought (in my innocence) from Brico Depot was incorrectly marked with L & N transposed whereas Legrand stuff I had also bought was correct & of course much better quality.
Other than a PITA it's no big deal to swop over 2 wires on the 'duff' sockets.
Too late to complain to but worth checking if anyone buys from the likes of Brico depot.

[RobertArthur]

Polarity of French sockets; anything in the French electrical code NF C 15-100? No, they mention wiring colors, wire gauge and maximum cable distance (voltage drop). Inside the tableau électrique it's another story:
le neutre est branché à gauche et la phase à droite. Following also the inscriptions on the disjoncteurs and on the secondary side of the main switch, the disjoncteur de branchement. In the case of phase reversal by the EDF/ENEDIS you have a problem with the old single pole types ( the first two): the neutral wiring will still carry the full mains voltage after switching off the circuit it is supposed to protect.

So looking at it from a regulatory point of view there is no formal obligation to adhere to the left (neutre) - right (phase) arrangement for sockets. It is a convention, good practice and indeed much neater.

Phase reversal and sockets, dangerous? This would be a major problem for about eighty percent of the EU population, countries with the Schuko sockets. A probability of 50 % to insert a plug the wrong way, a polarity disrespect by design? Haven't seen a caveat in the tv manuals of Sony, Samsung, Panasonic, JVC, Philips etc. IMO only three potential problem areas. For those who still listen to their fifties/sixties radios equipped with the (in)famous U tubes, no transformer needed, chassis can be live (plastic cabinet). Two, for those using an american step-down transformer in Schuko countries and to conclude case three les chaudières à ionisation (ignition phase sensitive).

And even if you do your best to wire every socket conforming to the left/right convention, another practical question on the horizon: all those universal euro cables, so many producers around, do they follow the different Schuko and French prise électrique conventions? I'm afraid not.

[RobertArthur]

About double sockets, what about this phase reversal, produced by the well respected monsieur Legrand himself, a law-abiding person: in the old Neptune series, frontside and backside.

[L Austin France]

Thanks for that reasurance RA. I thought it was OK but I'll still change 'em over in due course so it's all the same.
Presumably the dejonteurs, branchement & differential still function with reversed polarity on the sockets.
I've tried a VT 35 tester on the 'wrong' sockets but it'll only tell me I've got reversed polarity & only lets me check the ID if I connect it via a 2 way adaptor which has one outlet reversed which brings things back to normal as far as the tester knows.
All ID's trip between 20-25 mA.

[RobertArthur]

@ L Austin France, the French name interrupteur différenbtiel is not too bad, much better than the old elcb terminology. They only react to an unbalance in currents, don't need a connection to earth. Unless it is you.....Checking goes with a built in resistor., creating a fault current of 2.5 * I nominal (30 mA). Only a quick and dirty check, to keep the mechanism inside moving.