I have no idea about the chronology of this, but the Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Germans, and the English (and presumably more) definitely knew how to do compound joinery with the same methods. There are some subtle differences, but they all worked with the same basic (or really not so basic) triangles. It would be interesting to study the dates of those crazy roof frames, and see who had the earlier versions.

I'd be interested to hear whether there is something unique about the French version.