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TheFrench Wikipedia (French:Wikipédia en français) is the French-language edition ofWikipedia, the freeonline encyclopedia. This edition was started on 23 March 2001, two months after the official creation of Wikipedia.[1] It has2,739,279articles as of 16 February 2026, making it the fourth-largest Wikipedia language version, after theEnglish-,Cebuano-, andGerman-language editions, and the largest Wikipedia edition in aRomance language. It has the third-most edits, and ranks6th in terms of depth among Wikipedia editions, in addition to being the third-largest Wikipedia edition by number of active users as of January 2025.[2] It was the third edition, after the English Wikipedia and German Wikipedia, to exceed 1 million articles: this occurred on 23 September 2010.[1] In April 2016, the project had 4,657 active editors who made at least five edits in that month.
In 2008, the French encyclopaediaQuid cancelled its 2008 edition, citing falling sales on competition from the French edition of Wikipedia.[3]
As of February 2026, there are 5,639,000 users, 143 admins and 78,089 files on the French Wikipedia.[4]
On 2 December 2014, the French-language Wikipedia became the third-largest language edition by number of registered users,[5] overtaking for the first time the German edition, with 2,022,504 registered users,[6][7] behind the English (23,300,456)[8] andSpanish (3,401,493)[9] language editions.
The countries in which the French Wikipedia is the most popular language version of Wikipedia are shown in dark blue.Page views by country over time on the French Wikipedia
The audience measurement companyMédiamétrie questioned asample of 8,500 users residing in France with access toInternet at home or at their place of work. Médiamétrie found that in June 2007, French Wikipedia had: 7,910,000 unique visitors that visited the site at least once during the month of June 2007 (compared to 4,355,000 unique visitors in June 2006); 2.7 visits per visitor during the period (2.0 visits in June 2006); had held the 12th position (21st in 2006) in "the Top 30 most visited sites in France,excluding Internet applications", according to the criterion of the number of unique visitors and 12th position in "the Top 30 most visited sites in France,including Internet applications", likeeMule orReal Networks (22nd position in June 2006).
By August 2011, French Wikipedia was the 7th most visited site in France, with nearly 16 million unique visitors a month (according to Médiamétrie). In April 2012, it had 20 million unique visitors per month, or 2.4 million per day[10] with over 700 million page views.[11]
Based on an analysis of discussions on the French Wikipedia, Sahut (2016) concludes that internal disputes over sourcing andadmissibility can be understood as a tension between two ideal-typical “knowledge regimes”: a wiki regime, which prioritizesopen participation and quantitative growth, and an encyclopedic regime, which emphasizes reliability and verifiable sources. On the French Wikipedia, this has resulted in a hybrid compromise in which strict referencing rules coexist with egalitarian wiki norms such as “N’hésitez pas” and “Supposer la bonne foi.” Sahut finds that the French Wikipedia community applies its sourcing policies in a relatively lenient manner. Although editors frequently discuss the large number of articles that lack references, unsourced material is generally not removed in a systematic way. Rather than enforcing the rules strictly, the community often relies on templates and tags to signal sourcing issues.[13]
The study "Cultural Differences in Collaborative Authoring of Wikipedia" (2006) shows a strong negative correlation between a country’sPower distance Index (as defined inHofstede's cultural dimensions theory) and the frequency of deletion edits in its corresponding Wikipedia language edition. In high-PDI cultures such as France, people are more accustomed to having important decisions made by superiors and therefore tend to avoid actions that invalidate someone else’s work. As a result, contributors on the French Wikipedia are likely to feel uncomfortable about deleting others’ work and are less likely to delete information or links.[14]
The French-language Wikipedia tends to be more formal than the English or German editions, with contributors often addressing each other using formal pronouns, following the conventions described by theT–V distinction.[15]
An important difference with theEnglish Wikipedia is that like theSpanish Wikipedia, or thePortuguese Wikipedia in the past, following a community vote in 2006 the French Wikipedia does not accept any images posted underfair use, with the only exception beinglogos. As of 2025, this exact ban is still in effect.[16]
Another important difference is that whileWikipedia administrators are elected for an indefinite period, anybody can start a formal "motion of no confidence" contesting their status,[17] with the community thereby invited to vote for or against removing their privileges. This also exists on the Spanish[18] and Portuguese Wikipedia.[19]
^Taha Yasseri; Anselm Spoerri; Mark Graham; János Kertész (8 July 2013). "The most controversial topics in Wikipedia: A multilingual and geographical analysis".arXiv:1305.5566v2 [physics.soc-ph].
