With the continuous advancement of China’s “Belt and Road Initiative”, Chinese enterprises have become increasingly involved in international engineering markets, undertaking numerous transportation infrastructure projects, particularly in Africa and Southeast Asia. However, international engineering projects commonly face the challenge of inconsistent design standard systems across different countries, posing significant difficulties for Chinese enterprises during project implementation. To address this issue, the differences in BRT road design under Chinese and French standards were focused on in this study, and their respective design philosophies and methods were analyzed. Taking a BRT project in a West African country as an example, field investigations, design scheme comparisons, and data analyses were conducted to explore the key points of road design for BRT projects under the French standard system, with an emphasis on key issues encountered in the design process. The results indicate that the French standard system emphasizes a people-oriented approach, places high demands on design details, particularly with strict standards in road geometric layout, accessible pathway design, and traffic management, and possesses strong flexibility and adaptability. The findings provide a reference for Chinese enterprises engaged in BRT road design under the French standard system.