Every year since 2004, the daily Le Figaro publishes, with GFK, the ranking of the ten best-selling novels by French-speaking authors. According to the newspaper, in 2024, these writers alone represented 7.9 million copies sold, compared to 7.5 million in 2023, an increase of 400,000.
What do the French read?
As explained Le Figarothis classification aims to reveal “ a photograph representative of what the French have read in 2024 “. Looking at the rankings, we see that French-speaking readers were mainly attracted by popular literature novels with feel-good, detective stories, thrillers, without forgetting new and dark romance, two booming genres represented by Morgane Moncomble et Sarah Rivens.
A predominantly female ranking
The novelist Melissa Da Costa can congratulate itself on being, for the second year in a row, at the top of the ranking with 1,162,730 copies sold in 2024. His latest book Stand uppublished last August by Albin Michel, sold almost 200,000 copies. With her, five other writers also made a place for themselves on the list.
Thus, we find Morgane Moncomble in third position, Virginie Grimaldi (4e), Marie-Bernadette-Dupuy (7e), Sarah Rivens (8e) et Valérie Perrin (9e).
The latter is also one of the new arrivals in the ranking: her latest novel Tata published by Albin Michel is close to 280,000 copies sold. Other news for the novelist: her work Change the flower water (Albin Michel), already performed in the theater and winner of several Molières, will be adapted into a film by Jean-Pierre Jeunetwith Leila Bekhti as the main actress.
-The writers Joel Dicker et Michel Bussi They are also carving out a place for themselves and replacing Maud Ankaoua et Pierre Lemaitre. Absent from the list, Marc Levy had been there for 20 years. The authors Franck Thilliez et Guillaume Musso maintain their positioning compared to last year, the latter having exceeded one million copies sold in 2024.
A success for pocket formats
According to Le Figarosince the beginning of the list, the pocket format has played a considerable role in the sale of Books for many authors. Mélissa Da Costa’s first place is due in particular to the reissue of her novels in Livre de Poche. If it is the same for Virginie Grimaldi, Guillaume Musso and Marie-Bernadette Dupuy, Sarah Rivens is the only one to have only sold large format works.
Ranking details:
- 1era: Mélissa Da Costa (1,162,730 copies)
- 2e: Guillaume Musso (1,104,096 copies)
- 3e: Morgane Moncomble, 984,144 copies)
- 4e: Virginie Grimaldi, 946,787 copies)
- 5e: Joël Dicker (863,740 copies)
- 6e: Franck Thilliez (689,112 copies)
- 7e: Marie-Bernadette Dupuy (540,967 copies)
- 8e: Sarah Rivens (540,628 copies)
- 9e: Valérie Perrin (528,292 copies)
- 10e: Michel Bussi (525,478 copies)
Weekly Books will publish in its February issue a ranking of the 2024 bestsellers by literary segments.
