'french' knife would be the classic triangle shaped chefs knife. I think if you really get down and looked at what's being use you will find it's whatever their supplier likes to stock
As many resturants are not that concerned with what knife they use as they are quite bad in the abuse department. The recomendation is stainless steel , no wood and perferably no cracks or gaps, something they can toss in the dish washer and put thru abuse, they sacrifice cutting and edge holding over abuse friendly.
Also if you head over to places like cooking.com the pampered chef and other places like that and take a look at the best sellers you will see a trend.
Also if you look at the 'iron chef's on food network you will see in the original japanese version they all use custom hand made knives, in fact
http://www.chefmorimoto.com/knives/knivesinternal.htm
Ed