A French-language Facebook site went online on Monday hot on the heels of German and Spanish versions of the Internet social networking giant. US-based Facebook produced the site with the help of 4,000 French users, who suggested a range of translations for common Facebook jargon - to "poke" a contact, for instance - and then voted for the best choice.
Founded in 2004 by former Harvard student Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook claimed to have 67 million active users worldwide at the beginning of March, of whom 1.4 million live in France.
The French version follows the launch of a Spanish site last month and a German one that went online last week. Members can now choose from a drop-down menu to display the framework of the site in any one of the four languages - although many applications, games and software nuggets so far remain displayed in English.
A majority of Facebook users now live outside the United States, with a third based in Europe, and the website hopes to increase its global popularity by making itself available in an array of languages.