license/registration
 

Apologies in advance for what may be a stupid question, but ...

We're in the early stages of planning a RTW and looking into all the registration info. Because we're expats living abroad, we have some options on where to acquire and register our vehicle, and I'm wondering whether it makes more sense to be travelling on French license plates, or US? My sense is that French will attract less adverse attention in some of the countries we're planning to hit - but are we going to have any problems crossing borders with US passports and French plates on our vehicle?

Go for the French registration - you shouldn't have any problems with it at borders. And as you already note, "will attract less adverse attention".

I have travelled on UK plates, French plates and Chinese plates.
All with a UK Passport.
In every new country, the Immigration officers couldn't read our Western alphabet registration plates, any more than we can read theirs...!
IMHO it is the passport that matters, not the car plates...
Having so said, I agree with Grant Johnson that French plates are probably easiest, as all the Saharan countries are familiar with the 'Carte Gris' registration document.

Thanks for the advice!