We can now place France in the same category as Italy when it comes to boneheaded decisions in how to deal with online poker. France now only allows its residents to participate in online poker games from companies within French borders, and only against other French players; effectively dropping them from the international market.

French PokerStars users were greeted with the following message when they logged into their accounts: “All money in PokerStars accounts is 100% safe and is available for withdrawal. You can choose to cash out now if you prefer.”

In order to continue playing on the PokerStars platform French residents must download PokerStars.fr – similar to the Italian version at PokerStars.it. Needless to say French poker players were not happy with the developments and expressed their dismay at online poker forums across the Internet.

The move has caused most serious French poker players to fold up shop on PokerStars, since the pokerstars.fr version of the popular online poker room is likely to have about 1/20 of the traffic they are accustomed to. Hopefully the French parliament will eventually see the error of their ways and amend the current laws in a way that will bring French online poker back into the international mix.

New Stars players can use PokerStars marketing code ‘PSP13785′ for a $600 bonus.

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Tags: Poker stars, PokerStars, pokerstars france

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