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Gérard, I know the French were very much at the forefront of carbon brakes... Gordon Murray had got the idea from Concorde and tried to develop the concept for F1 as it began to look like a must have technology in F1. I think he was working with a US Company (Hitco?) who he had an exclusive arrangement with, and which forced other teams to look elsewhere. It took them a few years to perfect having had problems with boiling fluids and other heat radiation associated problems and narrow operating bands as you mentioned. I think French aerospace supplier Carbone Industrie came to the party, but it took them a while to catch up on work Murray had been doing for years.
Hence Brabham were very much helped to their World Championship win in 1983 by their carbon brakes (Piquet was the first to win a GP using carbon brakes in 1982, winning the Brazilian GP - until he was DSQ'd for being underweight. : D)
Certainly the French involvement sped up the advancement of carbon brakes to where we are now. I think Carbone Industrie are now the go to supplier for F1, along with Brembo.
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