AFNIC Opens .FR and other AFNIC operated TLDs to Europe

.FR is now open to  EU, along with the other TLDs operated by the French Network Information Centre( AFNIC) amongst them .wf (Wallis and Futuna), .tf (French Southern and Antarctic territories), .re (Reunion Island), .pm (St. Pierre and Miquelon), and .yt (Mayotte).

.FR has been the sick man of Europe even outperformed by Poland's rapidly growing .PL . The leading ccTLDs in Europe are .de(Germany), .uk .nl(Netherlands) .it(Italy) and .pl(Poland) . the French it seems are not very welcoming of .FR but with this now open to the EU, maybe the active domaining community in Europe will gobble up a few hundred thousand .FRs. Let's see if .FR will hit 3 million domains in the next few years. ReadAFNIC announcement below:

The opening of the .fr TLD to the European Union follows on from the appointment of AFNIC – on 2 March 2010 – as the Registry for the .fr extension, as specified by the French decree of 6 February 2007. The contractual framework that accompanied the appointment was a novel one, including, within two years from the date of designation, the opening of the .fr to entities domiciled in the European Union.

In parallel, the new legal framework for domain names in France established by the Act of 22March 2011 meant that domain names involved a number of new issues. All the French Internet extensions (.fr, .re, .wf, .pm, .tf. yt...) were affected by the new procedures resulting from the law, including the opening to Europe before on 31/12/2011. An opening that will help promote the differents territories that are Wallis and Futuna, French Southern and Antarctic territories, Reunion Island, St. Pierre and Miquelon and Mayotte.