Total Cost For France.fr: €4 Million Euros

I know, I can’t let it go. I’ve been fascinated by the France.fr saga since it’s “launch” day and its nearly immediate crash. It’s supposed to be a grande multi-language portal for French culture and tourism, generously paid for by French taxpayers.

The site was down for over a month (even French entrepreneurs were laughing) and finally went live on August 16.

Anyway, it turns out the whole project went just a tad over budget and will end up costing around €4 million euros. Which is pretty awesome because I can’t figure out how in the world someone could bill that amount while keeping a straight face.

If any other countries out there want their own “grande cause nationale,” we’d like to bid on the project. I’ll assign a TechCrunch intern full time for at least two weeks to the site, and it’ll only cost you, say €3 million euros. Which is, like, a million euros in your pocket.

And with that I officially end our coverage of France.fr until at least next year. Le Web is coming up in Paris in December, and I can’t be having the French all up in arms against TechCrunch when I get there. Thanks for the tip, Cyril.