From ComScore - Facebook Leads by Engagement in France
In France, 47.8 million internet users spent a total of nearly 1.2 billion hours online in December 2011. Google Sites was the top online property by unique visitors, attracting over 44.8 million people who spent a total of 137.5 million hours on the site. During December, over 39.2 million users went to Microsoft Sites making it the second most popular online property ranked by visitors.. Facebook was the leading site in terms of engagement with over 32.9 million unique visitors spending 165.5 million hours on the site during the month.
With Google and Facebook offering branded pages, should you consider creating them in French? If you are an expat business in France then you really should consider it.
It must come down to your target customer base and the product you are selling surely?
Someone selling hand knitted Morris dancing costumes to saddoes in Dordogneshire has no need of a page in French, he/she would be better off spending their time tweaking their English page.