Comment by nix0n

Linux is a global project, and open source more broadly is also of course global.

Linux Mint (the distro I use) was started and is led by French developer Clement Lefebvre.

QEMU and FFmpeg are among the notable projects started by French developer Fabrice Bellard.

VLC was started by students of École Centrale Paris.

These are just the things that I know about as an American, so I'm sure there are more.