I understand the doubts in the previous posts, and yes I would advise to take what I said about the present situation with a pinch of salt: I don't work in the business.
There are two things to know about the French market, however.
For one, it is pretty conservative and, as an example, the number of carbon blades is low when compared to the rest of the world. Main sources being this and a couple other forums, tt11. com charts and playing regularly in Scotland in two places (plus a few opens around the country), and a few times in Prague. Celluloid balls are still used in some places in France, although back where I am from (in the country) this this sometimes due to the OG eco-mindful spirit - they're there and they are too good to be thrown away, so that you'd even use the half-worn ones and keep the new ones stashed away. It is not just what I see in real life, as there's also a very popular forum that's the central online meeting place (no doubt this can be discredited too, but then why are we even here?). Much bigger than TTD in terms of active users. I know, endless streak of anecdotes and all that... Maybe Takkyu and Thomas can chime in as well, as they have both played abroad for a long time.
Second point is, Wack Sport. Some things have changed with the online resellers coming in, but they used to have nigh on monopoly over the market in the period I described, with Dauphin a very far second (as the name suggests! Sorry, it's a French joke..). Wack use their own equipment rating system, which has been discredited many times but still is the norm for a large number of players. 45 degree sponge is a fairly recent thing, back not so long ago you would ask what the Wack speed rating was and guess what, the best combinations of speed and control ratings were always for Tibhar and Banco (always assumed there was a partnership between the two) ahead even of Butterfly products which looked fast but uncontrollable, not to mention expensive. They also always had very good pre-assembled bats with top of the line equipment from both these brands, almost exclusively. Banco Black Light was a killer on paper, and still is commonly found. I know it is easy to laugh, but you have to remember how things were before the Internet ("right, I'm placing an order - no need to say with whom - so we'll share the costs, who needs new rubbers? Here's the catalogue").
For some reason, when Butterfly narrowed distribution to a single reseller they decided to go with Dauphin who, regardless of the boost, never had the most exciting catalogue and are nearly unheard of for many players (more anecdotes..). With the arrival of tt11.fr (very active on the French forum throughout the years, and a popular boutique in Paris, but no access to Butterfly and pushing the jump forward from the old guard to Xiom, Nittaku et al. right over Joola's head, except for the Rosskopf Emotion), Misterping and others, again Butterfly are not at the front of the picture.
They probably have the most loyal following, I'll give you that.
Also, what I said about Joola's current marketing was a little unfair as they have definitely pushed a bit higher up the scale in the last few years (can't talk about the Rhyzers, which I haven't tried), even in terms of design and finishing. The TPE blades should be known better, and at that level of build the prices are fair. Golden Tango, which yogi mentioned, is giving me the itch as well (PS version for me!) and getting a lot of people interested in what is still a niche, at least for German brands.
