I used to see them in few places in late 80- early 90's but after that they kinda disappair pretty fast.

{ I did see that in both USA and France as well }

Merci, Marc

P.S. they did have few other size as well that time too including T-10 verison of it

I seem to remember high-UV output fluorescents that looked like this - circa early 90's or late 80's. I imagine they had some weak spots on the "sharp" edges around the twists that would cause them to break when tapped against an edge of a table or something. Although they look kinda neat, the shape kind of defeats the strength of the cylindrical design.