Originally Posted by pdhenry
I'm not sure, but I think that for international flights the rules of the country of origin apply - my rational being that in many/most international airports the flights aren't segregated by destination country (or in some cases even by domestic vs. international destination) so a single set of criteria need to be applied at the security checkpoint. So while these are probably the rules for the SFO-CDG leg, the return rules might be more restrictive.
It seems to me that most European airports now have a separate section of the airport or a second checkpoint at the gate for flights to the US (and possibly to Canada and Israel) where US-style security rules are enforced, which are typically more restrictive than for flights elsewhere.