Next in our
series on international Web markets is France. Other countries profiled so far have been
Germany, Holland, Poland, Korea, United Kingdom, Russia, Spain, China, Turkey, Italy and Brazil. France
has the 9th highest number of Internet users in the world, with 26.8 million. It has an
Internet penetration of 44%, putting it below countries like the US, UK and Germany (all
of which are over 60%). But France is similar to its neighbors Italy and Spain, which are
both in the 40-50% range for Internet penetration. Perhaps more significant is the number
of French language speakers on the Web, which is estimated to be 4.4% of all Internet
users – or 45.8 Million. However that’s only an estimated 12% of all French speakers, so
there is plenty of room for growth there.

My thanks to Thomas Ezan and Jean-Pierre Christie for the information in this post.
Both kindly sent me details about the French Web market and its most popular apps.
Overview of French Market
When I think of France and the Web, I think of Netvibes (the Personalized Start Page used by 5
million people according to recent
reports), Kelkoo (the price comparison engine
sold to yahoo), and Jeff Clavier (not a web
app, but a French angel investor!). But obviously there is much more to the French Web,
so I asked Thomas to tell me more…
R/WW: Do most people use French web apps/sites instead of the US ones?
Thomas: Not really, except for news websites. For example newspaper websites like LeMonde, Liberation and LeFigaro. There are also many internet and IT-focused
websites like 01net. All of those sites are in french. The
typical french person is not used to reading or talking in english, unlike in Germany,
Netherlands and the nordic countries. There is also french version of Techcrunch.
R/WW: Do the big companies have French language versions of their products?
(Google, Yahoo, Microsoft etc)
Thomas: Google is the number 1 website in France and the other big companies like msn,
yahoo are also very well used in France. For example their email services are well used.
They all have a french version (which they must do to target the french market). MSN
Messenger is the number 1 IM service (AIM is not very well used here). The french
versions of amazon and eBay are also very famous here.
R/WW: What are the biggest Web companies in France?
Thomas: I’m not sure, but meetic is number 1 as
far as turnover is concerned (it’s a dating site). And it’s started to spread around
Europe. There is also priceminister and 2xmoinscher, were people can sells second-hand
stuffs (it’s a kind of eBay without the auction concept).

The biggest e-shops are Cdiscount.com and Rueducommerce, were you can find anything (buying on
the internet is now common in france, even for my mother!). Lastminute.com is the number 1 travel site. There is
also kelkoo, a “price comparer” created by Pierre Chappaz
and sold to Yahoo for millions.
Thomas’ Top Web Apps
Zlio: a kind of Loomia or MyPickList, which goes
further in enabling you to create your own shop online (here is mine). Thus it’s a “smart clone”, by
cloning and then innovating further… isn’t it innovation ? 😉 [Richard: yes,
definitely!]
Wikio: made by the ex-ceo and founder of kelkoo. It’s a kind of digg-like in french, with many
technical and financial features. Chappaz is a “VIP” in the “net-economie”, with a weekly
tribune in liberation, a big french newspaper – so there’s been a lot of buzz on
wikio.
LaFraise: created by a guy from Ubisoft, it’s a
clone of threadless but it’s taking over and
becoming international. Personaly I prefer lafraise to threadless, which doesn’t have the
same “graphical spirit”.
Podemus: a podcasting reference founded by Bertrand
Lenotre, it could be compared to odeo but it includes video.
Jean-Pierre’s List of French Web Apps
Digg Clones
http://www.wikio.fr/: the main french digg clone
(see above)
http://www.scoopeo.com/: another french language digg
clone [update: Scoopeo is from Belgium, not France]
http://fuzz.fr/: digg clone
Photos and Videos
http://www.fotolia.fr/: photo site
http://www.dailymotion.com/:
watching/publishing/sharing videos
http://www.criteo.com/films.aspx: films
and videos
http://www.eyeka.com/: photo and video sharing
http://www.kewego.fr/: video sharing
http://www.skema.fr/: video solutions
http://www.atafoto.com/: online shared photo
book
Social Networks / Blogs / Bookmarking
http://www.6nergies.net/: professional social
network
http://www.linkedfeed.com/: automated and
customizable information social network
http://www.yoono.com/: rss reader/integrated
social book marking
http://www.widiwici.com/index/:
Sport exploits, information sharing, challenges
http://www.blogspirit.com/fr/index/:
professional online blogs service
http://www.agoravox.fr/: citizen media
Misc
http://www.i-maginer.fr/: real-time 3D web
services
http://www.netvibes.com/: personalized start
page
http://www.kartoo.com/flash/3: meta
search engine
http://www.zlio.com/:
« tupperware » like website (see above)
http://www.uneinvitation.com/: leisure
organization platform
http://www.jamendo.com/fr/: music online
http://blog.moovement.com/: jobs
http://www.bluekiwi.fr/: intranet solution?
Top visited French specific websites
http://orange.fr/: top french telecom provider’s
website
http://free.fr/: second-placed telecom provider’s
website
http://www.voila.fr/: dating, chat website
http://www.mappy.com/: road and travel guide
http://www.fnac.com/: big French ebusiness
website
http://www.boursorama.com/: first stock
exchange website
http://www.skyrock.com/front/index/:
Skyrock radio’s website
Summary
As always, please leave a comment if we’ve missed something or you have more
information about the French Web market. Thanks again to Thomas and Jean-Pierre for the
details in this post!
Update: based on comments below, here are some additions. Apologies to
those we missed out first time round…
- I completely forgot that Personalized Start Page Webwag
is French, even though I
profiled it recently! - skyblog.com, the largest “blog”
and social network in France currently (thanks ouriel from Techcrunch
France, who also pointed to their special
tag for French web apps. - http://wecheese.com,
another social network (thanks Paul
Monnet) - vpod.tv (video sharing), viaduc
(french LinkedIn), photoways (photo
printing and related services) — via Jeff
Clavier - http://www.xwiki.com
(Collaborative Intranets / Wiki solutions) - http://www.geoportail.fr
(A kind of Google Earth) - http://v3d.pagesjaunes.fr
(2 french cities – Paris & Rennes – in 3D) - French Search Engines: http://www.kartoo.com and http://www.exalead.com
— all these suggested by Ronan
/ Business Garden - http://www.xfruits.com
(RSS service) - http://www.blogmemes.fr
(digg-like in an international network) - http://www.framasoft.net
(open source directory) — thanks Clea - http://www.visualkit.com.
— thks Laure - JobMeeters — thks Julien