France Best Selling Albums Ever:
Update Part 2

00s Dying Records

Gérald de Palmas – Marcher Dans Le Sable (2000) : 1 310 000

Dropping a first hit single in 1994, Gérald de Palmas quietly waited until 2000 to break the main audience thanks to his Marcher Dans Le Sable album. Never really leaving the map since with a new album in 2016 hitting #3 and being charted for 39 weeks as of now, the singer still isn’t a strong catalog seller. Cannibalized by Sur Ma Route 2011 compilation, Marcher Dans Le Sable is rarely stored at physical retailers and ranks currently outside the Top 30,000 at Amazon.fr. The promotion of his last album surely brought it a few sales which is why it features the second batch of albums updates instead of the first one.

Musical – Les Dix Commandements (2000) : 1 180 000

The advantage of a musical is that no compilation can cannibalize it. Never mind, this isn’t a guarantee of strong ongoing sales for years. Out of charts since 2002, Les Dix Commandements is one of the weakest performers nowadays among all successful musicals that came out after the Notre-Dame de Paris blizzard in 1998. As an evidence, while this latter album still holds the top 2 spots – both standard and extended editions – in Amazon.fr Musicals category chart and Roméo & Juliette ranks #5, Les Dix Commandements is way down at #27.

Carla Bruni – Quelqu’un M’A Dit (2002) : 1 405 000

Off to a very promising start with the success story Quelqu’un M’A Dit, former model Carla Bruni career struggled to remain consistent in latter years. Her 2007 English album bombed in France and when she finally returned with a French record in 2008 she had married the country President Nicolas Sarkozy, making it difficult to promote the LP without getting into controversy. Even without a compilation out, after so many years outside of the spotlight Quelqu’un M’A Dit isn’t selling much this days with the title track getting most of the interest through digital outlets.