Just a question. You say the following is obvious. How is that obvious?
"Don't make mobile apps only for one region" then you'd be getting a lot of comments saying "Well, obviously"
"If you want mass adoption, don't build apps with a max penetration of 1% of the global population" seems pretty obvious. Other variations: "If you want mass adoption, don't build apps only usable on Blackberry".
France is a massive homogenous market with high penetration of their target platform, and large comfortable middle class. It's probably easier to pilot in France than it is in most other markets. And launching globally has non-trivial implications for cashflow & risk.