France best selling albums ever:
Summary 1980-1989

Band Albums

01 Dire Straits – Brothers In Arms (1985) : 2 010 000
02 U2 – War (1983) : 1 225 000
03 Simon & Garfunkel – The Concert In Central Park (1982) : 1 240 000
04 U2 – The Joshua Tree (1987) : 1 225 000
05 Dire Straits – Money For Nothing (1988) : 1 220 000
06 AC/DC – Back In Black (1980) : 1 065 000

While it was expected to see much less females, it may be surprising to see so few band albums in this ranking. This is mostly due to the lack of truly big local band, although Téléphone and Indochine did well. Two foreign acts highlight their strength in France. Dire Straits sold over 3 million copies of two albums containing many songs in common, while Simon & Garfunkel sold past 1,2 million with a Live set. U2 has two albums over 1,2 million thanks to both relevant initial and catalog sales. AC/DC also always had solid results in France and pretty logically sold in excess of a million with their classic albums.

Various Artists / Concept Albums

01 Éric Serra – Le Grand Bleu Soundtrack (1988) : 1 760 000
02 Soundtrack – Dirty Dancing (1987) : 1 750 000

Very few to say about this category that only contains two big selling Soundtracks from the later part of the decade.