You might find some interesting tools from Australia, although I doubt
the shipping's much cheaper.

I've also seen Taiwanese wooden planes in the Lee Valley catalogue. 
They're not the same as Japanese or Western planes -- they're pushed,
I believe, but have a crossbar handle as well.  They've got to be made
somewhere in Taiwan; perhaps you could get factory seconds?

George Frank, one of the better known wood finishing experts and a
great writer, worked in France for a number of years.  There's a book
collecting his stories and articles that's out of print.  My favorite
described how he had to ammonia fume an entire bank full of oak
furniture and paneling -- the color was too light so they put bowls of
ammonia in the main room, sealed everything up, and kept checking
through the windows until the color was correct.

Finally, there's at least one good bilingual French/English
woodworking web site, including a shopmade grinding jig designed to
sharpen lathe tools:

http://www.jeanmichel.org/

Ken Meltsner