This is a page about IDNs managed by a specific registry.
See Internationalized Domain Names for more general information.

AFNIC (afnic.fr) is the French Registry for the .fr (France), .re (Reunion Island), .yt (Mayotte), .wf (Wallis and Futuna), .tf (French Southern Territories), .pm (Saint-Pierre and Miquelon).

There are a total of 30 accented letters that may be used with an accented AFNIC domain, as follows:

ß à á â ã ä å æ ç è é ê ë ì í î ï ñ ò ó ô õ ö ù ú û ü ý ÿ œ

During the sunrise period with the “Grandfathering” rule (from 12 April 2012 to 3 July 2012), the holder of an ASCII version of a domain name has a right of priority to register its IDN equivalent.

Who can register
During this period, only the current holder* of the ASCII version of the domain can register the IDN version, and it must be with the same registrar. The registrar will confirm your right to priority registration of the requested IDN version.

* as per the Nic-Handle (the single AFNIC holder reference used by the registrar, as visible in the whois)

Where to register
During the sunrise period with the “Grandfathering” rule, you have to go through the registrar with which you registered the ASCII version, so that through the “Nic-Handle” (the single AFNIC holder reference used by the registrar) listed for the ASCII domain name, we can recognize you as having a right of priority and can allocate you the requested IDN version.

If the registrar in question does not register IDNs, you must transfer your domain to another registrar that offers the service and ask for the IDN version as soon as the transfer has taken place.

On 3 July 2012, IDN registration will be available on a “first come, first served” rule. After this date, anyone may register the IDN-equivalent version of an ASCII domain name provided that the applicant is the first to provide evidence of their legitimate interest and good faith.

Here is an example to illustrate priority registration for ASCII domain name holders during the Sunrise period:

If you own “peches.fr” you are entitled to register “pêchés.fr”, “péchés.fr”, “pèches.fr” etc. with the same registrar.

It is important to note that for a single “ASCII-equivalent” version (as can be seen in the second example above), there may be a very large number of associated IDNs.

• Can IDNs be used as sub-domains?
  • “It is already possible to register IDNs under a domain name. As long as the domain name complies with established standards and therefore is properly encoded, there are no other constraints. To avoid any ambiguity, it is even possible to create IDNs using other characters than those authorized by AFNIC, as long as the domain name registered with AFNIC meets our constraints. For example, αβγδ.amoureux-du-grec-ancien.fr (“xn–mxacde.amoureux-du-grec-ancien.fr”) may exist.” Source: afnic.fr

• Gandi bar post: Accented .FR domains
• afnic.fr: AFNIC IDN convertor
• afnic.fr: IDN - technical specifications
• afnic.fr: General FAQ (See IDN section)