France's minister for the digital economy Eric Besson, has set out the roadmap for analogue digital switchover. The aim is to achieve switch off by the end of November 2011. The first switch-off is scheduled for November 8, with a pilot switch off in city of Coulommiers, a town of 20,000 inhabitants south-east of Paris. The process will be completed on February 4, 2009.

Following a second pilot, the national switch off will start on May 31, 2009 in the city of Cherbourg. From the end of 2009, two regions, one in the west and other in eastern France, will begin.

In the west, it will take place in the regions of Brittany (3,103,000 inhabitants), Pays de Loire (3,455,000 inhabitants) and Basse Normandie (1,453,000 inhabitants). In the east, it will be in Alsace (1,829,000 inhabitants), Champagne-Ardennes (1,337,000 inhabitants), Lorraine (2,343,000 inhabitants) and Franche Comte (1,151,000 inhabitants).

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