I worked for as a crewman for a civilian helicopter company in scotland who operated AS350's, AS355's, SA315's, SA365's and a B206 flying into some of the most inhospitable places at times.
My personal view is I feel safer flying 100 miles over water in a AS350 with a French Arriel engine than a AS355 with 2 crappy American Allison engines, the installation of those in engines is at best cheap and the view from most of the pilots was if 1 engine goes on the AS355 then the other takes you to the scene of the crash.
We also had the first AS350B1 (Arriel 1D1 engine)in the UK which actually suffered an engine failure due to the freewheel unit eject itself through the exhaust, not very nice when you are 100ft with a 1 tonne underslung load on board, as you can imagine the aircraft was wrecked but the pilot survived and still fly's today thank god.
But we also had a couple of alledged maintenance errors where 1) the anti-coll light fitting wasn't re-connected after maintenance and went through the first stage compressor making a good bit of damage but the aircraft flew for a day and the only reason it was noticed was when the pilot felt he was lackin slightly in the power department it was only a AS350B and 2) very similar a nut went through the first stage compressor after maintenance and the aircraft continued for 1 week spreading fertiliser with 1 tonne loads ad similar the pilot felt he didn't have enough power, my point is speaks volumes for the french engines to carry on running and are much more durable and reliable which is hence I would rather have 1 french engine than 2 american engines any day, hell they even called AS350's in the US which were fitted with LTS101's the Falling Star, now to me that just proves my point.
Rant over!!!
------------------
Better to be up there wishing you were down here than be down here wishing you were up there!