What does Facebook want for Christmas? A greater foothold on the European ad market by the looks of things: the social network is set to open a sales office in Paris as part of plans to grow across Europe, according to Mad.co.uk. The site’s commercial director for EMEA Blake Chandlee has unveiled the office’s first employee Damien Vincent who has defected from MySpace France where he was head of sales. Facebook claims to have 6.1 million users in France and to have just reached the one million mark in Switzerland, adding to its 130 million users worldwide. Facebook translated the site into French in April and saw an immediate traffic boost, but it still trails in France to the Skyrock social net, which has more than 12 million users. In August Chandlee was behind moves to double the site’s UK sales and marketing staff to about 40. There are more than eight million UK users but according to Nielsen Online suffered a slight dip at the start of 2007 from a peak of 8.5 million.

What are Facebook’s chance’s of making some money in France? Digital advertising revenues are slowing there so they’re right to get in there now. Analysts France Pub estimate that digital advertising revenues have grown in France by €913 million (719 million) this year, up 23.4 percent on 2007. But ad spend revenue grew by 35.2 percent year on year in 2007—and France Pub says H208 is lagging behind H108 in terms of revenue.

• Facebook Grows UK Team To Sell New Engagement Ads
• Facebook Gains In France, Still Trails Far Behind Skyrock
• French Digital Ad Growth Slowing - But Still Selling Better Than Other Media