Via the UK's Independent.  I love it.

Typepad Europe has done a great job introducing blogging to the main European countries as well.  Loic LeMeur et son equipe ont  fait un super travail !  I remember meeting him briefly about 2 and one-half years ago in Paris as he was just getting started, and he certainly has covered a lot of ground since then.

The International Herald Tribune picks up on this emerging trend (and imo it's not surprising - I know France well and agree with the  notions advanced by sociologists cited in the articles).

"France's Mysterious Embrace Of Blogs"  (IHT, July 27, 2006)

'Cher journal': French love affair with internet results in world's top bloggers
By John Lichfield in Paris


What is the French for a "blog"? The answer is "un blog" - and the French have seized on them more enthusiastically than any other nation. By several yardsticks, the French are more rabid bloggers than even the Americans, who invented them.

According to one recent survey, six million French men and women, or one in 10 of the population, have blogs, or interactive internet diaries, devoted to their personal lives, thoughts, anguishes, loves and hatreds.

This figure, based on unchecked claims by French internet users, is regarded as exaggerated. A more conservative survey, by the respected media study company Médiamétrie, puts the number of active French blogs at just over three million - still proportionately far ahead of the US and by far the largest number in Europe. Britain is estimated to have more than one million blogs.

Why are the French such keen bloggers ?

If any of you know French bloggers, please help spread the word that there is now available a French version of a free, easy-to-use offline blog editing application that has advanced, designed-just-for-blogging functionality.

Qumana also offers bloggers a French version of a sophisticated and easy-to-use RSS newsreader - Lektora.

Tags: Qumana French, Typepad, Typepad Europe, Loic LeMeur, blogging

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