By gradually migrating to a complete open source desktop and web applications, Gendarmerie Nationale, the French national police force with 105,000 employees, has saved millions of euros. The move cuts Microsoft out of the equation, helping the French national police force slash its IT costs by 70 percent.

The French National Assembly has passed a draft law that would allow illegal downloaders to be thrown off the net.

A French laptop buyer has won a refund from Lenovo after a four-year legal battle over the cost of a Windows license he didn't want. The judgment could open the way for PC buyers elsewhere in Europe to obtain refunds for bundled software they don't want, French campaign group No More Racketware said.

The French national police force has slashed its IT costs by 70 per cent by cutting Microsoft out of the equation.

According to a Nabble post from an OpenStreetMap (OSM) community member the French Minister of the Economy, and the Direction Générale des Finances publiques (DGFiP) in charge of the French cadastre have allowed the OSM project access to vectorised geo-data from the French land registry.

Linux already powers everything from supercomputers to mobile phones. Google runs more than 10,000 Linux servers. Amazon.com switched to Linux and saved a cool $17 million. The French National Assembly has started using Ubuntu on more than 1,000 computers. Since the blockbuster movie "Shrek," the DreamWorks studio has been using Linux to render its 3-D graphics and special effects.

The French government has come up with a wizard wheeze which seems to be entirely designed to back the software giant Microsoft.

In a Franco-American alliance, the likes of which has not been seen since the French backed a campaign by anti-democratic terrorists against its lawful government, the French are going to tax every tablet which does not come out with Windows software on-board.

The French paramilitary police force said Wednesday it is ditching Microsoft for the free Linux operating system, becoming one of the biggest administrations in the world to make the break.

Not only do the French have a different word for everything, they also have a strong Open Source leadership position. The French have done much to foster the growth and acceptance of Open Source software--especially Linux.