I was 12 in 1999.
On November 12 of that year, a certain Mister Bibou put Pokélord online for the first time. It was an amateur site, made with heart on a 56k modem, with images compressed as JPEGs (but already so beautiful!) and a layout that I personally found revolutionary at the time. I was one of the first visitors, and of course Pokémon was at the center of my life: this game I was discovering on Game Boy, that blue Game Boy everyone fought over in the schoolyard, deserved a home in French. Because everything, back then, was in English or Japanese. Because Bulbapedia didn’t exist. Because nobody talked about Pokémon the way we did, among friends.
A few years later, when Mister Bibou entrusted the site to me, I made him a promise: never let go.
We’ve lived through so many adventures: the launch of the PF community, our legendary forum, the Pokémon Masters events, the name change to Pokémon-France, social media, Blast’s podcasts, Méli’s FanArts, Jejou’s cards, the thousands of hours spent writing again and again with Zhuquarnage.
But today, I’m keeping my promise. I’m relaunching this site.
27 years later.
What doesn’t change
Pokemon-France is, and will remain, a fan site. Independent. No shareholders. No media group behind it. No hidden agenda. Just enthusiasts writing for enthusiasts, in our own language.
This isn’t a marketing pose. It’s what has made the site different since day one, and what will make it different in 10 years. When you read a card page on Pokemon-France, you’re reading someone who loves that card. Not someone coldly filling in a grid of search results.
What does change
Everything else.
For two decades, I kept that promise. As best I could, through the site’s many lives, its highs, its lows, its silences.
In recent years, sadly, I watched Pokemon-France age. Content growing scarce. Pages getting slow. The site drifting toward that sad state where it still exists, but nobody knows why they come anymore. It was hard. It’s hard to watch something you’ve loved since childhood die.
So a little over a year ago I made a decision: either we bury it with dignity, or we rebuild it. Truly. Not a coat of paint. Not a theme change. A complete overhaul.
That’s what you’re seeing today.
What we put into it
22,000 Pokémon cards in French. Each with its own complete page. High-definition visual, illustrator, series, rarity, trivia, its place in the meta of its era, a link to the Pokémon it depicts. To my knowledge, there is no card library of this caliber anywhere else in French. It’s the work of the past few months, and it’s the thing I’m proudest to put forward.
All 1,025 Pokémon in the new Pokédex. Each page is linked to its TCG cards, its evolution chain, its appearances across 30 years of games. Looking for Charizard? You’ll find the Pokémon, its stats, its generations, and every TCG card featuring it since 1999. It’s the first time a French site offers this Pokédex ↔ TCG continuity at this level.
Gazette, our new editorial engine that runs around the clock. Games, TCG and anime news — sourced, dated, delivered without interruption. We reinvented the inside too. So that Pokemon-France becomes what it always wanted to be: a daily reflex.
30 years of games, generation by generation. From Red/Blue on Game Boy to Scarlet/Violet on Switch. Guides, walkthroughs, pages. So new players can find their way, and longtime players can rediscover their memories.
The PF community, forever
Those who have followed me for a long time know there was another, parallel project that grew: PF, the French-speaking Pokémon social network. More than 3.2 million messages exchanged. TopTeams that battled for years. FanFictions read and reread.
Pokemon-France and PF coexisted for a long time without really talking to each other. That’s over. Today, your account works on both. Your TopTeams surface on the Pokemon-France home page. FanFictions find their place next to the Pokédex. Content on one side, community on the other, one single ecosystem.
It’s what it should have been all along.
What I want to tell you
If you’re reading these lines and you knew Pokemon-France in one of its previous lives — thank you. You kept the site alive even when I was no longer there to hold it up. You’re the reason there was something to relaunch.
If you’re discovering Pokemon-France today — welcome. The site you see is only a starting point. We’ll publish news every day. We’ll enrich the pages. We’ll keep growing the card library. We’ll listen to what you tell us, and we’ll iterate every week.
And if you want to be part of what comes next — come to PF. The community home is there, it’s beautiful, it’s alive. A mobile app is coming very soon. Other things are on their way, and we’ll announce them when they’re ready.
27 years
When I look at the Pokemon-France home page today, I think of that 12-year-old kid discovering Pokélord, and of the teenager who uploaded his first files over FTP, telling himself it was madness to dare do this.
He would have been proud.
He is.
Might Founder, Pokemon-France.com & PF Since 1999
