The French Wikipedia () is the French-language edition of Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia. This edition was started on 23 March 2001, two months after the official creation of Wikipedia. It has articles as of 2025, making it the -largest Wikipedia language version, after the English-, Cebuano-, and German Wikipedia-language editions, and the largest Wikipedia edition in a Romance language. It has the third-most edits, and ranks among Wikipedia editions, in addition to being the third-largest Wikipedia edition by number of active users as of January 2025. Retrieved 5 January 2025. It was the third edition, after the English Wikipedia and German Wikipedia, to exceed 1 million articles: this occurred on 23 September 2010. In April 2016, the project had 4,657 active editors who made at least five edits in that month.
In 2008, the French encyclopaedia Quid cancelled its 2008 edition, citing falling sales on competition from the French edition of Wikipedia.Litchfield, John. " France's favourite encyclopaedia falls victim to Wikipedia." The Independent. Wednesday 20 February 2008. Retrieved on 26 June 2013.
As of July 2025, there are users, admins and files on the French Wikipedia.
On 2 December 2014, the French-language Wikipedia became the third-largest language edition by number of registered users, overtaking for the first time the German edition, with registered users,Spécial:StatistiquesSpezial:Statistik behind the English () and Spanish () language editions.
By August 2011, French Wikipedia was the 7th most visited site in France, with nearly 16 million unique visitors a month (according to Médiamétrie). In April 2012, it had 20 million unique visitors per month, or 2.4 million per day with over 700 million page views.
Another important difference is that while Wikipedia administrators are elected for an indefinite period, anybody can start a formal "motion of no confidence" contesting their status, with the community thereby invited to vote for or against removing their privileges. This also exists on the Spanish and Portuguese Wikipedia, but not on the English Wikipedia.
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