France best selling albums ever:
On Every Street by Dire Straits (1991)

One of France favorite bands of all-time, Dire Straits were at their absolute peak when they released On Every Street in 1991. This album followed two million selling albums, both of which had reached the milestone even before this new set was issued.

Naturally heavily anticipated, the album shipped 300,000 units prior release. Opening at #1 were it remained six weeks, the album sold over half a million units by the end of the year despite being released in October. In 1992, it did even better.

Despite no single issued after the #7 lead Calling Elvis made it to the Top 20, they all enabled the album to stay under the spotlights. Starting the year with several weeks inside the Top 5, it never dropped below #37 in those 12 months, accumulating over 600,000 more sales. The album was certified Diamond in 1992.

Related live album On The Night got released in May 1993 – when debuted with four weeks at #1 – stopping the promotional campaign of On Every Street, that had sold 1,2 million up to that date.

Despite the initial smash, the overall average ratings of the album have hurt severally its catalog sales, way weaker than all their 1979-1985 albums. While their Brothers In Arms usually sits inside the Top 500 Amazon.fr sellers, and their earlier albums Top 5,000, On Every Street struggles to be Top 20,000. Ironically, the only time it was seen on French charts since 1993 was in 2009 when a 2CD package along with Brothers In Arms charted for three weeks.

Net shipment as of the end of 2015 is estimated at 1,330,000 copies.

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

Sources: SNEP, Nielsen, Billboard, L’Express.