France.fr returns after launch bug
France's flagship website is back online after being plagued by technical problems when it launched last month
A NEW official website providing information about France in five languages including English is finally back online, a month after it crashed on launch.
France.fr went live with much fanfare on July 14 to coincide with the French national holiday, but it was pulled within hours due to a series of technical problems.
The site was full of dead links and pages accidentally swapping from one language to another. The error message initially claimed that the site had been a “victim of its own success”.
The government’s central communications office, SIG, has carried out a full audit to work out what went wrong and has switched to a new web host. Half of the site’s €1.6m budget over three years has already been spent.
The flagship site aims to serve as a shop window for France, promoting the country to students, businesses and tourists. It also provides day-to-day practical information about living in France.
France.fr claims 3,000 pages and 12,000 links to external sites. A second phase of the launch is due in November, including more community features.
As well as French and English, the site is also available in German, Italian and Spanish.
