I have owned two shotguns such as you describe with the name Francotte's Arms. Both had the genuine AF proofs, so were "real" Francotte guns and not fakes. However, it seemed in my looking around that the line of guns they put out marked as Francottte's Arms were perhaps a low end line, maybe intended for some particular market. While nice guns, they were clearly not the quality of other Francotte guns without the "Arms" as part of the name. It's not at all uncommon for a major maker to have a "leader" line of guns, and I believe this was their "leader" line.
