How do you build French AI apps with Plugsky?

Key facts

French text	UTF-8 Latin script with accents, ligatures such as œ and elisions such as l'utilisateur
Register	vous and tu change verb forms throughout — keep one per surface
Regional varieties	France, Canada and African French differ in vocabulary and phrasing; evaluate the variety you serve
Tokenisation	Accented and elided forms can split into subwords — measure with the 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
Product status	Chat, streaming, JSON mode, function calling, embeddings, RAG and agents live; audio, images, moderation, files, batch, fine-tuning, assistants and responses coming soon

TL;DR

• French runs on the standard endpoint with one base_url change.
• Expect slightly more tokens than the English equivalent.
• Choose vous or tu per surface and state it in the system prompt.
• Keep accents in display and embedding text; normalise only for search keys.
• plugsky-embed-multilingual covers French and English retrieval.

How it works, step by step

1. Create a free Plugsky key and set base_url to https://api.plugsky.com/v1.
2. Send real French prompts to /v1/chat/completions and compare two or three models.
3. Measure tokens with the token calculator and size chunks from your own text, not translations of English samples.
4. Decide vous or tu per surface and write it into the system prompt.
5. For RAG, embed with plugsky-embed-multilingual and test French and English queries against one collection.
6. Score outputs on a French gold set with native review before cutover.

Original data

Try it yourself

Open the token calculator →

How Plugsky handles French text

French needs no special endpoint: send UTF-8 text with accents, ligatures and apostrophes and the API returns the same. The engineering decisions sit in register and regional variety. vous and tu change verb forms across a whole sentence, so mixed prompts produce mixed outputs; and French written in France, Canada or West Africa differs in vocabulary, idiom and punctuation spacing.

Typography deserves a test too: French uses narrow no-break spaces before certain punctuation, and models sometimes omit them. If your product renders copy directly, add a normalisation step or accept the model's spacing.

Tokenisation and cost in French

French usually costs a little more per sentence than English because phrasing runs longer and accented or elided forms split into subwords. Apostrophes are the main fragmentation point: l'utilisateur, d'un, qu'il. Ligatures such as œ and accented capitals are rarer and usually handled, but worth checking in official text.

• Measure tokens on native French, not on translated English samples.
• Normalise apostrophe characters to one code point early.
• Keep accents for display and embedding; fold them only in search keys.
• Re-measure after changing models.

French retrieval and RAG

One multilingual collection built with plugsky-embed-multilingual serves French documents with French or English queries. Retrieval problems usually come from accents, apostrophes and regional vocabulary rather than from the embedding model itself.

• Normalise apostrophes and whitespace before indexing.
• Add accent-insensitive keys for keyword search alongside embeddings.
• Keep regional variety consistent between documents and queries.
• Test English queries against French documents explicitly.

Code example: a French request

Point your OpenAI client at https://api.plugsky.com/v1; only the content and system prompt change.

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": "system", "content": "Réponds en français avec le vouvoiement"}, {"role": "user", "content": "Résume ce contrat en trois points"}])

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

Honest comparison

Capability	Plugsky	French apps today	Building in-house
API compatibility	OpenAI-compatible — change base_url and model name	Varies by provider and SDK	Full rewrite
French text handling	UTF-8 accents and elisions with vous/tu prompt control	Depends on provider tokeniser and prompt hygiene	You build normalisation and evals
Token budget	Fixed tokeniser per model; measure native French and chunk to fit	Varies by provider and model	You host and tune each tokeniser
Multilingual retrieval	plugsky-embed-multilingual for French and English 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, including accents, ligatures and elisions, on the OpenAI-compatible chat endpoint. Compare two or three models on your own prompts.

Why does French need more tokens than English?

French phrasing often runs longer and elided forms such as l'utilisateur split into subwords. Measure native French text with the token calculator before sizing context windows.

Should prompts use vous or tu?

vous for formal, B2B and service flows; tu for consumer and social products. State the choice in the system prompt and keep templates consistent.

Do I need to handle Canadian French separately?

Vocabulary and some phrasing differ. If you serve Canada, keep a separate evaluation slice and avoid averaging results with France French.

Is there a multilingual embedding model?

Yes — plugsky-embed-multilingual is part of the 30+ model catalogue and supports French and English retrieval from one collection.

Can I keep data in the EU?

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

Is there a free plan?

Yes — plugsky-micro and plugsky-lite are free with no card, and a 14-day full-access trial covers the paid catalogue.