As described early, most of the french 30s - 40s, (viedogames main consumers), grew up with Nintendo, animes and manga and japanese culture generally. The 20s generation really grew up with manga and are more Playstation fans. For your information, the second manga market after Japan is France.

Yeah, the lycée that I attended during my studies had quite a but of manga, so I read things like Death Note in French.

The french were heavily exposed to japanese culture in the 80's and 90's. Shows like Bioman, Maskman, and Liveman became heavily popular in the late 80's, as did japanese anime's like Kyaputen Tsubasa (Olive et Tom), Heidi, Princesse Sarah, Ie Naki Ko (Rémi sans famille), Nicky Larson, Tom Sawyer and others. And shows like Sailor Moon and Dragon Ball of course also had a big following. I think this influence left a lasting impression on people who grew up during that time period.

In the late 90's, games like Final Fantasy VII (the first Final Fantasy game translated in french, if I'm not mistaken) left a heavy impression on french gamers. This is also the period where games (at least from the big companies) started being regularly localized in french, as this was not the case before. The 90's and early 2000's was the golden age of japanese games and as such, japanese games heavily marked french gamers of that period. If japanese games remain popular, it's in part because of nolstalgia from this period.

The french are also one of the nerdiest peoples. The notion of "cool" doesn't really exist, so people are free to enjoy stuff without being shamed by peers for it. France has become the second market for manga or manga-inspired comics (many being written and drawn by french people and don't have anything to do with Japan). And France has also become the "champion" of reportive books on games, with companies like Pix'N Love releasing books on the history of Nintendo, Zelda, or other aspects of gaming and many of these books have been translated and released in other countries.

http://www.gamekult.com/actu/la-france-championne-du-monde-des-livres-de-jeu-video-A172683.html

I think it has to do with being exposed to it at the height of the Japanese culture, when japanese anime, manga and games were still good. Other countries were not as heavily marked by this. And the culture in France that's not too concerned with "cool" or being "in" also helped a lot. Now, many of those from that golden age are having kids and passing on their interests.

Another French guy here!

I guess we have quite a strong and active manga/anime/Japan community here. Anime have been in kids TV shows or channels for a long time now. We also have a strong "Bande dessinée" market (France and Belgium comics) really favorable to manga, because it's quite natural for us to buy and read manga-like books in a lot of stores. "Bande dessinée" (Astérix, Tintin, Lucky Luke) is the traditionnal market, but manga kinda became the new popular branch of this market and is now everywhere, even in public libraries, with a lot of events or articles about it even in mainstream media, and strong publishers.

So not every French guy is a Japan fan, but I guess more people here are used to Japanese content. It's also true for other things, French people are usually really open to other cultures. We're the number 2 biggest pizza eaters behind the US too ^^.

I think it has to do with the decade-long and unique Franco-Belgian tradition with BD (bandes dessinées). [I'm from Germany and love BD way more than manga, btw]. Starting with Katsuhiro Otomo's Akira in the 1980s, Japanese manga publishers expanded their audience to Europe and NA. Akira was a sensation among western comic fans. As fas as I know France embraced manga first and faster than other countries (and imo thanks to their already established BD culture). I also think that early Studio Ghibli movies were most successful in France outside of Japan.

[Side note: The downside of today's worldwide manga domination, at least for Germany: Franco-Belgian BD were pretty successful over here 20 years ago. Today people only buy the latest Asterix (1+ million copies in Germany alone), all other BD - even those who are successful in France, like, say, the latest Largo Winch or the latest series from Scotch Arleston - sell only several 1000 copies in Germany these days. In other words: While France had adopted manga earlier and still have a very successful BD market, the German comic market and presumably all other markets in Europe are almost completely dominated by manga today.]

Also, BD and manga influenced each other, e.g. when I first saw the Ghibli movie Nausicaä (I think it's originally from 1984, but made it to the west only in the 1990s), it was pretty clear to me (I'm a Moebius fan) already after a few minutes in - when Nausicaä discovers the Omu (sp?) shell - that Miyazaki was strongly influenced by legendary French BD artist Moebius' (real name: Jean Giraud) works from the 1970s for Metal Hurlant: Arzach and Le Garage hérmetique (these comics were groundbreaking and highly influential in Japan). For a Moebius fan, the influence on Miyazaki is almost instantly visible in his early movies. For all others, here's an article on the topic for further reading: http://www.nausicaa.net/miyazaki/interviews/miyazaki_moebious.html

So it's no wonder to me that France (and I assume also Belgium) embraced manga, anime and early Japanese videogames such as Nintendo's faster than other countries. FRA and BEL (to a certain extent also NED) are the only countries besides Japan with an own and unique comic culture which is completely different from the US tradition of superhero comics.

Anyone remember Club Dorothée?

More Nintendo friendly than other European countries but that's it.