La France online: bilan pas terrible*

Perhaps it is not altogether a bad thing that the French, in general, are not very branché Internet. It may be because they are close to their families and friends, don't generally move far away from them, and prefer to do things in warmer ways, in person. 

But it's true that compared to Americans of the same age, French people and companies tend to be behind the times. Older people (i.e. the ones running the country) still scarcely know how to use the internet, which in France is called Internet, as if it were a person. I overheard a woman complaining that everyone sent her Youtube links but she doesn't want to open a Youtube account. 

A couple of years ago I did a post called "Why do French websites all suck?" Not much has changed since then. French websites still have Enter pages, always use Flash animation (for lo, it is written!), and horribly often hit you with loud unexpected music as the page opens. Pages still take too long to load, and navigation is still the very last priority.

Orange. The little window advertises their search engine: "Faster to the essential things!" As you can see.

Today's post is inspired by H's difficulty in buying a ticket online to the Musée d'Orsay. 

Musée d'Orsay ticket

In the U.S., you can buy tickets simply by paying online with your credit card. But in France, to buy ONE ticket, you generally have to open up a new online account and answer all their spammy database questions, complete with login ID, username and password that you'll have to remember, cell phone number, email address, postal address and even birthdate! No thanks.

The same is true at many, many other sites, including the Louvre and Versailles. For example, I've given up on going to see this show I'd like to see, because you can't buy tickets online without opening a new account at a ticket service. Oh and these sites note your IP address so that if you bought before on a site, you can't open a new account but have to use your old one (too bad if you didn't write down all your made-up info because you thought you'd only use it once since it was so annoying). NOOOOoooooo....

The gap between internet companies in France and in more welcoming countries is starting to attract attention in high places. This week, the ministre déléguée for the digital economy (in case you're wondering, yes, France does have ministres for every possible concern) announced a new program called Paris Capitale Numérique [digital capital], which has the aim of making Paris the new French Silicon Valley. There will be a new space for web entrepreneurs, probably the Halle Freyssinet, near the Gare d'Austerlitz and the Bibliothèque Nationale, and including high-speed broadband to the tune of €300 million a year (which would be great; I'll believe it when I see it). By the way, not that the U.S. has anything to brag about on that score. But we do have a huge country.

On her Facebook page, Fleur Pellerin, the ministre, wrote, "We are going to create in Paris or its near-in suburbs a place which will be the flagship of French web technology. This is to become an international showcase, a world-class incubator.  Up to 1000 start-ups will be able to use the 25,000-square-meter space The start-ups will have access to a single office [for government dealings] and to all necessary services on-site.... You can read my complete interview in Libération (paying link :http://www.liberation.fr/economie/2013/03/05/nous-allons-creer-un-lieu-etendard-du-numerique_886516) and the Agence France-Presse article in Le Monde: (http://www.lemonde.fr/economie/article/2013/03/06/fleur-pellerin-veut-creer-un-quartier-numerique-a-paris_1843398_3234.html)

It's all too typical that the first link is paying only and that the ministre posted an unreadable copy of the article on her Facebook page, which by the time I saw it had attracted 60 comments, a third or so of which were on the order of "bravo" and the rest complaints that the move was pointless. The main objection was that in France, space is not the biggest problem. Rather, entrepreneurs need for it to be easier and cheaper and more socially acceptable to set up a company, whereas right now they have to deal with the "administrative jungle." "That's why everyone's going to Berlin." Also, why is the space in Paris, when France is already far too centralized? And many think nothing will happen at all.

*Digital France: grade: C+

Comments

[DaleyBrennan]

I must say that I've never been disappointed with Paris's internet connection. I have a 200mbps fibre optic connection that costs me relatively little compared to what I would have had to pay in the UK. I'm not sure what it's like in the rest of France but never have I had a problem with mobile telephony, particularly 3G service, either. Furthermore, not only can you access data networks on the metro, many of the stations are WiFi equipped too.

Admittedly, many websites are indeed poorly designed. But they've come along way since 2005 when I first started trying to understand how the university system worked and what it was that we actually had to do to apply. Even university websites have come a long way in that timeframe.

Annoying as it may be, having to answer security questions when paying for something online is, I believe, a cultural point. France still won't relinquish cheques and, despite trying to introduce it, Moneo hardly took off. The French don't like debt; they like security with their finances.

[Sedulia]

I am dealing with a university whose website is back in the Stone Age, so I'm prejudiced. The wifi in Paris is pretty good, though! I love being able to use my smartphone in the metro. I didn't really mean wifi connectivity; that isn't the problem. It's more that the tech mentality is still a bit oldfashioned.

[Lisa, a.k.a. The Bold Soul]

Yes, it is so annoying that Internet service in France is so behind the times. And slow. I'm told that Free.fr (which we use for our home service and phones) deliberately slows down access to video services like YouTube at peak viewing hours in the evening. It's such a pain!

I did want to drop some Internet (or internet) trivia though. The Internet has normally capitalized as a global standard when it refers to the world-wide network overall. We then say "internet" (lower case) when referring to smaller local networks that do roughly the same thing as the world-wide 'Net. So it's not just a French thing to capitalize it, but it is also true that more organizations are blurring the lines of this naming convention so you will certainly see exception to this original "rule".

[Nan]

Our theory has been that their attachment to and refusal to give up the minitel caused the French to be late in embracing the internet and handicapped the development of the kind of sites we see elsewhere.

[Sedulia]

I never thought of that! That may be true. I remember one of my uncles coming to visit in Paris when the Minitel was in its heyday. He worked for Southern Bell and was quite impressed with the technology. I used to brag about it to Americans! Then I remember an American who moved to Paris in 1996 and couldn't believe no one had email.