It seems that since the return from summer holidays in France this season, not a day goes by without some significant announcement in the internet space here.

Some notable strategic fundraisings have taken place (e.g. Groupe Casino’s investment in Rue du Commerce), Opodo and Meetic have put themselves up for sale, and there’s the highly publicized acquisition battle over SeLoger.  Moreover, the vast majority of these operations involve strategic players, online and offline alike.

Marc Fiorentino of Euroland Finance explains the exuberance as a result of the increasingly undisputable conclusion that almost every sector will need to shift all or a portion of its activities into the digital domain.  Businesses embracing or centering on the internet are the only sectors offering significant, double-digit growth rates today.  France’s deep entrepreneurial talent pool that survived the first internet bubble represents another driver to the online shift.

So is France entering a second internet bubble ?  One fundamental contrast between internet companies today and those of the late 90’s is profitability.  Back then, profitability was elusive, practically non-existent.  Dot-com companies were valued based on multiples of eyeballs, or phD’s.  Today’s internet actors are not only fast-growing, but also often wildly cash-flow generating.  Growth and profits in a zombie economy might keep this dance going for a while…