I saw this and immediately thought "The heck is this thing?"I couldn't guess, even after seeing the use case photo: It's called a BraceBlok, and it's basically ballast. It's made by Batisec, a French manufacturer of construction site fencing. These objects, which are made out of concrete and skinned in plastic, weigh 50kg (110 lbs) and are used to brace temporary fencing. As ugly as I find the thing, I suppose form does follow function here. The centralmost cutout in the underside accommodates the separate black base (which weighs another 14kg) for the metal brace. The U-shaped notch admits the brace at an angle, and the Space-Invaders-like shape is so that the blocks can be stacked in transit. Nothing about this object, however, screams "designed in France" to me.