iLounge

France Telecom has announced that the French launch of the iPhone will be held at 12 of its Orange stores Wednesday night. Stores in Bordeaux, Lille, Lyons, Marseilles, Montpellier, Nancy, Nice, Nantes, Rennes, Strasbourg and Toulouse will be welcoming iPhone fans “from 6:30 p.m. onwards.” In Paris, the iPhone launch will be held at a new Orange store opening on Avenue des Champs-Elysées. The iPhone will sell for 399 euros when paired with one of four “Orange for iPhone” plans, which run from 49 to 119 euros a month. The phone will also be available for 549 euros for those who don’t want to switch to an “Orange for iPhone” plan, and will be priced at 649 euros plan-free. Orange also announced that it will unlock the handset for an additional 100 euros during the six months following the purchase of the phone. France Telecom chief Didier Lombard has previously said he expects to sell nearly 100,000 iPhones by the end of 2007, and in a separate statement said that his company expects to sell between 400,000 and 500,000 of the devices by the end of 2008. “That is the middle of the range of our forecasts,” Lombard said.