The population of France is about 60.9 million inhabitants (22% of the U.S. population) as of January 1999. Density is 105 inhabitants per square mile.
Approximately 75% of the population live in towns of 2,000 or more. More than 50% of the French live in metropolitan areas. With 10,740,000 inhabitants, 18.6% of the total population, the Paris region has an average density of 890 inhabitants per square kilometer.
In population, France ranks 21st worldwide and accounts for 1.07% of the world population, which reached 5.5 billion in 1993.

Telecommunication Market overview

France has experienced technological advancements related to telecommunications and is the first producer of telephones on the international market. The telecommunications sector represents an annual turnover of USD 41 billion. 

The technological advancements are:

   - 14 years on-line with Minitel- the Minitel videotext system is used by more than 6.5 million households. The terminals provide 17,000 interactive information services including home banking and electronic mail. 

   - Digital networks- France is also well ahead in the digital network services, such as Numéris, (equivalent of ISDN lines in the U.S.) More than 95% of the French telephone network is digitized. 

IT Market overview

Estimated at USD 30 billion, the French IT market ranks second in Europe and fourth in the world.
This market is marking a full recovery from the early 90's recession with an anticipated growth of 10% in 1998, thus catching up with that of other Western nations in the adoption of the latest technologies, including of course all those revolving around the Internet. Several factors explain this turnaround: 

1. A healthy economic environment with low interest rates and a low inflation rate (around 2%)

2. Investments related to the need to switch to the Euro Currency by December 1998 

3. French corporations' long-delayed investments in new computer equipment that can no longer be postponed.

4. A shortening of the technological cycles which makes the adoption of new technologies ever faster - four years for client/server systems, eighteen months for the Internet and nine months for the Intranet. The combination of technological progress and sharp decreases in the price of machines and software have encouraged a dramatic rise in demand on the part of both professionals and non-professionals for the latest computer technologies. 15% of the French population are connected to the Internet. The adoption of this new medium is growing by 70% each year, thanks to an explosion in Web sites and CD-ROM titles as well as the availability of multi-media PC's in hyper-market chains for prices starting around USD1000.