When I was applying to grad schools in the US, my French undergrad was not recognized as a proper undergrad - it had to be a 5 year Master (I snuck around that restriction by spending a year in the UK and getting a british BSc).
But of course, French institutions consider 4 years american degrees to be equivalent to 3 year French degrees (rightfully so in their mind - after all, French people don't waste anytime declaring their major or taking general ed classes, which they have taken in high school; their class load also tends to be higher)
Tl;dr each country thinks their degree is better than the other's
In Quebec there's a stage between secondary school, and post secondary which lasts 2-3 years.
In terms of years, it looks like this: Primary:1-6 Secondary:6-11 Pre-Post Secondary: 12-13 Post Secondary 14-17(14-18 for engineering/etc.)
In the end they are equivalent, however differently structured.
For example, I've found the average MIT or Stanford BSc to be in a similar league as the average French student from a top 5-year school (eg INSA Lyon, Polytechnique, ETH Zürich, etc).
On the other hand, the average engineer out of a state university BSc is not quite as good as the average engineer out of a French public university licence program.
As I understand it, at the end of school Scottish students take "Higher" exams, and then can either apply to university then, or continue in school and take "Advanced Higher" exams first. And often people doing the latter can skip the first year of university. (As well as people from the UK with good A-level results.)
So while there's the possibility to do an extra year, I think in practice it's mostly equivalent to the UK system.
Highers are taken at the end of 5th year - with the 6th year being used for topping up results if they weren't good enough, acquiring Advanced Highers - which are quite often not really required and going to parties...
Some people go to Uni right after the highers (my wife did this and regretted it) and some go into second year directly with Advanced Highers - but very few people I know do either. Schools certainly recommend against both.
It sounds like you have far more experience of this, so thanks for elaborating.