How do you build French AI apps with Plugsky?

Key facts

French text	UTF-8 Latin script with accents, ligatures and elisions handled as-is
Register	vous and tu change verb forms throughout — keep one per surface
Tokenisation	Accented and elided forms can split into subwords — measure with the Plugsky token calculator
API compatibility	OpenAI-compatible POST https://api.plugsky.com/v1/chat/completions — chat, streaming, JSON mode and function calling
Models	30+ models behind one endpoint, from free tiers to frontier reasoning
Free tier	Free plan with plugsky-micro and plugsky-lite, no card required
Deployment	Plugsky cloud, your VPC, on-prem and air-gapped options
Product status	Chat, streaming, JSON mode, function calling, embeddings, RAG and agents live; audio, images, batch and fine-tuning coming soon

TL;DR

• French uses the same endpoint and SDK — only base_url changes.
• Keep accents in display text; NFC-normalise before indexing.
• Pin vous or tu per product surface.
• French phrasing can need more tokens than English — measure.
• plugsky-embed-multilingual covers French and English retrieval.

How it works, step by step

1. Create a Plugsky API key on the free plan (no card) and set base_url to https://api.plugsky.com/v1.
2. Send a small set of real French prompts to /v1/chat/completions and compare output across two or three models.
3. Count tokens for those prompts with the Plugsky token calculator and set chunk sizes that fit your model context.
4. Normalise text before indexing or prompting: NFC-normalise accents, and preserve apostrophes and ligatures.
5. For RAG, embed with plugsky-embed-multilingual and test cross-language queries alongside French-only queries.
6. Score candidate models on a French gold set with native-speaker review, then cut production traffic over.

Original data

Try it yourself

Open the token calculator →

How Plugsky handles French text

French uses the Latin alphabet with accents (é, è, ê, à, ç) and ligatures (œ), and writes left to right.

The vous/tu choice changes verbs and pronouns throughout a sentence, and Canadian French differs from France French in vocabulary and spacing conventions.

Evaluate on a French gold set that includes vous/tu and Canadian variants if relevant; check agreement and accents, which automated metrics usually miss.

Tokenisation and cost in French

French tracks English closely on token cost, but accents and elisions such as l'utilisateur and qu'il can split into subwords, and French phrasing often needs more words for the same meaning.

• Keep accents and apostrophes; strip them only for search keys, never for display.
• Normalise to NFC so composed accents stay single code points.
• Pin vous or tu per product surface and locale.
• Test Canadian French spacing conventions separately.

French retrieval and RAG

One multilingual collection can serve French documents and English or French queries; keep accents in embeddings and normalise only keyword-search fields.

• Use plugsky-embed-multilingual for French and English retrieval.
• NFC-normalise accents before embedding.
• Separate France and Canada variants in evaluation.
• Check that elisions survive chunk boundaries.

Code example: a French request

Point your existing OpenAI client at https://api.plugsky.com/v1 and pass French text in the content field — no language flag and no separate endpoint. Streaming, JSON mode and function calling keep the same request shapes.

client = OpenAI(base_url="https://api.plugsky.com/v1", api_key=os.environ["PLUGSKY_API_KEY"])

client.chat.completions.create(model="plugsky-pro", messages=[{"role": "user", "content": "Résume ce contrat en trois points, en français."}])

Start on the free plan with plugsky-micro and plugsky-lite, then compare paid models on a French gold set before cutover. See the docs for request details.

For production, log the model name and your normalisation settings with each request, and re-run the French gold set whenever either changes — language quality regressions usually come from prompt or preprocessing drift, not from the model alone.

Honest comparison

Capability	Plugsky	French workflow today	Building in-house
API compatibility	OpenAI-compatible — change base_url and model name	Varies by provider and SDK	Full rewrite
French text handling	Accent-preserving text with one vous/tu register	Depends on provider tokeniser and prompt hygiene	You build normalisation, segmentation and evals
Token budget	Fixed tokeniser per model; measure with the Plugsky token calculator and chunk to fit	Varies by provider and model	You host and tune each tokeniser
Multilingual retrieval	plugsky-embed-multilingual available for cross-language RAG	Often needs a separate embedding vendor	You serve and maintain embeddings
Sovereignty	Cloud, VPC, on-prem and air-gapped with residency options	Usually US/EU public endpoints	You own the full stack

Frequently asked questions

Can Plugsky handle French text?

Yes. The API accepts UTF-8 French input on the OpenAI-compatible chat endpoint; output quality depends on the model, so compare two or three on your own prompts before choosing.

How do I estimate token usage for French?

French tracks English closely on token cost, but accents and elisions such as l'utilisateur and qu'il can split into subwords, and French phrasing often needs more words for the same meaning. Use the token calculator at /tools/llm-token-calculator before sizing context windows or chunk lengths.

Should prompts use vous or tu?

Pin one per product surface and locale. Changing address forms mid-conversation is the fastest way to make French output feel wrong.

Do accents affect token counts?

They can. NFC-normalise text before counting or embedding so composed accents stay single code points.

Is there a multilingual embedding model?

Yes — plugsky-embed-multilingual is part of the 30+ model catalogue and is built for cross-language retrieval. Keep one embedding model per vector collection.

Can I keep data in my region?

Plugsky supports cloud, VPC, on-prem and air-gapped deployment with data-residency options; confirm your requirements with the docs and the enterprise team.

How do I migrate an existing app?

Change base_url to https://api.plugsky.com/v1 and map the model name. Streaming, JSON mode, function calling and embeddings keep the same request shapes.

Is there a free plan?

Yes — the free plan includes two free models, plugsky-micro and plugsky-lite, with no card. A 14-day full-access trial unlocks the paid catalogue.