AFTER 39 years and numerous imitations, Britain’s Top of The Pops has finally made it to French television — in time to celebrate a boom in the world of Gallic music.

Le Top of the Pops — the title ignores the French-only language laws — has been launched by France 2, the main state television network, under arrangement with the BBC and using the same formula of live appearances.

The difference is that the Paris version draws on albums rather than singles, to promote quality over “hits promoted by advertising”. France 2 said: “Top of the Pops has been the benchmark in the field of hit parades for 40 years.”

Jean-Jacques Allaigon, the Culture Minister, and the other official defenders of Gallic purity, are praising the France 2 broadcast as a showcase for a music scene which is thriving while the American-British industry is suffering decline.

French pop and rock have ceased to be a joke abroad in recent years as the country’s share of world record sales has rise ten-fold to a significant 5 per cent, thanks to bands such as Daft Punk and St Germain and world music stars such as Khaled and Manu Chao.

Less known beyond the French-speaking world are Alain Bashung, Jean-Jacques Goldman, Renaud, Axelle Red, Mylene Farmer and the many other mainstream pop idols who helped push up domestic record sales by 4 per cent last year.

Sales have fallen in every other major market, with an average 7 per cent loss in the US, Japan and Britain, the three largest. France has overtaken Germany as fourth. Yves Bigot, the France 2 director of variètè, the term for everything which is not classical or jazz, says that the boom partly reflects a worldwide “turning inwards” after September 11.

French music, which has a left-wing, anti-globalisation flavour, was capturing the spirit of the time, he said. “In the old days French pop was naff, shameful and out of date. Now people are valuing it for its special character, the way it places more emphasis on words and melody than the Anglo-Saxon version,” he said.

The taste for Gallic variètès has spread beyond the usual Gallic zone of Quebec, Belgium and Switzerland, and is making inroads in Italy, Germany, Russia and central Europe. The Italian charts are, for example, beginning to feature Italians singing in French.

The decline of the Anglo-American monopoly is a wider phenomeon as indigenous singers everywhere have taken bigger shares of their home markets. Emmanual de Buretel, president of EMI Continental Europe, said: “It’s a European phenomenon. In Germany, Norway and Sweden, a generation of ultra-dynamic musicians is appearing who have realised that the Anglo-Saxons did not have any justification for dominating the world music scene.”

There is also no doubt that the Gallic music renaissance is being boosted by the 1994 quota law which obliges radio and television to broadcast a minimum of about 35 per cent French music in the name of cultural diversity. Of the current top 10 albums, six are French, one of which is the latest by Johnny Hallyday. The much-loved Gallic rocker, who turns 60 this year, has a huge following, ranging from teenagers to Jean-Pierre Raffarin, 53, the Gaullist Prime Minister. The non-French are Phil Collins, Robbie Williams, Shakira, who is Colombian, and Tatu, a Russian duo.

However, the business is being driven by a creative renaissance covering the field, from high-grade singer-composers in the chanson française tradition of Serge Gainsbourg and Georges Brassens, to kid groups created for TV shows such as Star Academy, the French version of Popstars.

“We are in a very rich creative period,” says Pascal Nègre, the chief of Universal records, which holds a third of the French market. “The musical explosion has allowed new talent to emerge in genres as diverse as pop, hip-hop, rai, techno and independent rock.”

On Wednesday, in the show’s third week, Top of the Pops, included Marc Lavoine, a 40-year-old popster who has been churning out hits since the early 1980s. But the big star was Carla Bruni, 34, the former Italian supermodel who has launched a new career as a French singer-composer. Her album of minimalist songs accompanied by accoustic guitar has been number one for weeks.

Also fuelling the French boom is a nostalgia craze, which gave Patrick Bruel, 43, the best-selling album of 2002. His A Nous Deux, which sold 2.5 million, was made up entirely of 1930s hit songs.

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