Language

Official language
French

T-index
3%

T-Index ranks countries according to their potential for online sales.

Other languages
Arabic, Berber, Portuguese, Spanish, Italian, Polish, Turkish, German, Chinese, Vietnamese, Hebrew, Russian, Dutch, English.

English
High proficiency (EF) – 31 of 112 countries/regions in the world- 24/35 position in Europe.

Demography

Capital: Paris
Currency: Euro
Population: 67,50 m
Population density: 123/km2

Economy

GDP: 2,937,472.76 USD (2020)
GDP per capita: 43,518.5 USD ‎(2020) ‎
Exports: $472 billion (2020)

Statistics

Internet users: 93% penetration, 60.92 million
Unemployment rate: 7.9% (2021)
Urbanisation: 80.44% (2020)
Literacy: 99% (2019)

Conventions

Numbering system
Arabic numerals and comma as decimal separator, space as thousands separator

Date format: yyyy-mm-dd / dd-mm-yyyy
Time: 24h time system
Country code: 0033

Economy

Imports
$562 billion (2020).  Cars ($35.5B), Packaged Medicaments ($18.5B), Refined Petroleum ($14.7B), Vehicle Parts ($12.7B), and Crude Petroleum ($10.5B), importing mostly from Germany ($101B), Italy ($49.5B), Spain ($47.6B), Belgium ($44.4B), and Netherlands ($43.7B).

Financial inclusion factors (over 15 years of  age)
• 94% have an account with a financial institution
• 41% have a credit card
• 67% make online purchases

Ease of doing business
It is very easy to conduct business (rated 76.8 out of 100) ranked 16th out of 44 European countries, and ranked 32nd out of 190 countries worldwide (2022, World Bank).

Global Innovation Index
Ranked 8th out of 39 European countries, 11th out of 132 worldwide.

The Global Innovation Index captures the innovation
ecosystem performance of 132 economies and tracks the most recent global innovation trends.

Exports
$472 billion (2020). Packaged Medicaments ($27.9B), Planes, Helicopters, and/or Spacecraft ($25.2B), Cars ($18.9B), Vehicle Parts ($12.4B), and Gas Turbines ($11.5B), exporting mostly to Germany ($65.2B), United States ($36.7B), Italy ($36B), Belgium ($34.6B), and Spain ($33.9B).

Main local online stores
Amazon, Cdiscount.com and Fnac. Other top retail sites include eBay, Carrefour, Rakuten, Google Shopping, Leroy Merlin, La Redoute and Apple sites.

Economic freedom
‘Moderately free’ (rated 63.6 out of 100) ranked 33rd out of 43 European countries and ranked 57th out of 186 countries worldwide (2022, Heritage Foundation and Wall Street Journal).

Media

Media language
Predominantly French, English, Arabic

Information channels:
Television is France’s most popular medium. The flagship network, TF1, is privately-owned and public broadcaster France Televisions is funded from the TV licence fee and advertising revenue. Satellite and cable offer a proliferation of channels. Major pay-TV operator Canal+ is owned by media giant Vivendi. Digital terrestrial TV carries dozens of channels. France has a free press and more than 100 daily newspapers. Most of them are in private hands and are not linked to political parties. Public Radio France serves a domestic audience and French overseas territories. Commercial radios, particularly RTL and Europe 1, command large audiences. France is a force in international broadcasting. Radio France Internationale is a leading outlet and its Arabic-language Monte Carlo Doualiya service broadcasts across the Middle East. Global news channel France 24 TV broadcasts in French, English and Arabic. It has said it aims to present “a different point of view from the Anglo-Saxon world”.

The press

Le Monde – respected national daily, considered to be France’s newspaper of record
Liberation – national daily, founded in 1973 by philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre, centre-left leaning
Le Figaro – national daily, centre-right leaning
Ouest France – Rennes-based; France’s best-selling daily
L’Express – news weekly
Le Point – news weekly

Television

France 2 – national, main public TV network
France 3 – national, public
France 5 – national, public, educational
BFM TV – national, commercial news channel
TF1 – national, commercial
M6 – national, commercial
La Chaine Info – rolling news channel owned by TF1
France 24 – publicly-owned global news channel; services in French, English, Arabic
TV5 Monde – international French-language TV, with programs from French, Belgian, Swiss and Canadian public broadcasters
Canal Plus – national, subscription channel

Radio

Radio France – operates national and regional outlets, including speech-based France Inter and all-news France Info
Radio France Internationale (RFI) – international broadcaster, via shortwave and FM relays worldwide
Europe 1 – major commercial station, news and entertainment
RTL – major commercial station, speech and music
NRJ – commercial, leading hit music network

News agency

Agence France Presse (AFP) – Paris-based, founded in 1835

Internet Data

Internet users
93% penetration, 60.92 million

Share of web traffic by device
46.56% mobile phones, 50.29% computers (laptops and desktops), 3.07% tablet devices, others 0.08%

Median speed of mobile Internet connection
52.73Mbps

Median speed of fixed Internet connection
91.59 Mbps

Mobile connection as a percentage of total population: 107.6%

Percentage of mobile connections that are broadband (3G-5G): 96.8%

Most popular web search engines
Google (92.35%), Bing (3.66%),Yahoo (1.41%), Ecosia (1.15%) Qwant (0.84%), Duckduckgo (0.35%)

Most used social media
Facebook (62.87%), Pinterest (15.54%), Twitter (10.53%), Instagram (7.18%), YouTube (2.52%), Tumblr (0.61%)

Social statistics

Life expectancy
82.73 yrs (2020)

Average age of the population
42.3 yrs (2020)

Glass Ceiling Index
70.4 out 100, ranked 5th out of 29 countries

The glass-ceiling index measures the environment for working women combining data on higher education, labor-force participation, pay, child-care costs, maternity and paternity rights, business-school applications, and representation in senior jobs.

Religion
The majority of the French consider themselves to be Catholic. However, only 14% of them regularly attend church. Many think that religion belongs in private life and prefer to practice it outside of religious institutions. Muslims are the second largest religious group in France and most of France’s Muslims are from North Africa. There are also Protestant and Jewish minorities. The state is secular and discrimination, particularly in the workplace, is against the law.

Gender
According to the law there is no difference between the sexes and they enjoy the same freedoms. Women may hold the same positions as men; however, they are still in charge of bringing up children, doing housework etc., although this is becoming more equally shared. All of these tasks impede women from spending as much time at work as men can; therefore, the evolution of their career takes much longer. There are fewer women in positions of responsibility, but those who do hold them are respected all the more.