France best selling albums ever:
Les Dix Commandements Musical (2000)

Following the insane madness which surrounded Notre-Dame de Paris musical in 1998, French authors and labels hoped to reproduce this scenario. Time to write and prepare new musicals, three were launched and backed by strong promotion in 2000. Not all became successful yet as Ali Baba pretty much flopped, but both Les Dix Commandements and Roméo Et Juliette were big.

The one interesting us today, Les Dix Commandements, wrote by famous singer Pascal Obispo, was helped by the huge success of L’Envie D’Aimer single by Daniel Lévi. On a short-lived and teen-favored singles chart, the love song went on to chart 30 weeks inside the Top 10.

Parent album obviously benefited from this smash, debuting at #2 months prior the musical stage start. A couple of weeks prior the October stage debut of the musical, the album was already up to 700,000 copies sold in France. It was no surprise to see the set be certified Diamond on December 18 2001. A mid-price campaign during March 2002 pushed shipment at 1,12 million by the end of that year, selling rather poorly since that date.

Net shipment as of the end of 2015 is estimated at 1,180,000 copies.

As usual, feel free to comment and / or ask a question!

Sources: SNEP, IFOP, RFI Musique.