Online advertising in France is still stronger than other media in the economic slowdown, as it is in the U.S. and the UK, eMarketer reported.

The Internet will be the only channel to have significant growth in advertising this year, according to data from France Pub. Spending on display and search reaching €913 million (US$1.36 billion), increasing 23.4 percent from 2007.

Although spending on out-of-home is expected to gain 1.9 percent compared with 2007, all other main media will experience losses, according to figures from France Pub, eMarketer reported. Cinema will drop 7.4 percent, while press and TV are expected to decline by 2.9 percent and 3.9 percent, respectively.

Total advertising spending will shrink by 0.4 percent this year, according to eMarketer senior analyst Karin von Abrams.

However, online spending growth in France is down from a significant 35.2 percent in 2007 as the market becomes more saturated, according to the source. But “adverse financial conditions are also hitting online advertising,” eMarketer reported.

Although the Web should save the French advertising market from a steeper fall in 2008, France Pub reported that online spending in the second half of the year was already lagging behind that in the first-half. The most notable net decrease was in spending on banners and sponsored links.

One reason French marketers favour the Internet in difficult times is that the online population keeps growing. According to Nielsen Online, the number of active at-home Web users in France rose by more than 830,000 in August 2008, up 3.18 percent in the previous month.

France Pub in October predicted a growth of 16.2 percent in online ad spending for 2009, eMarketer reported.