On 3 July, anybody eligible to register a .FR domain name could register domains with 30 internationalised domain name characters, or diacritical marks, including é, è, ê and β.
The .RE, .YT, .PM, .WF and .TF ccTLDs are also covered by the new policy.
Afnic held a consultation and then sunrise period for existing registrants which led to .FR IDN names now being treated as any other.
During the sunrise period between 3 May and 3 July 2012 there were 11,541 domain names with diacritical marks registered. The 5 most popular new characters were as follows:
- “é”, used 9,334 times
- “è”, used 1,510 times
- “ñ”, used 640 times
- “ô”, used 572 times
- “ê”, used 560 times.
In the first few days since the launch on 3 July, 6,033 domain names with diacritical marks were registered. The 5 most popular new characters were as follows:
- “é”, used 5,552 times
- “è”, used 685 times
- “ô”, used 233 times
- “ê”, used 223 times
- “Ã “, used 183 times.