As in UK, A Short Album About Love was released in France as a digipack, but only for a limited time. After that, the standard release of the album came in a jewel box.
The first releases came also with a sticker advertising the album was recorded with a full orchestra.

Jewel box release

Like all other French releases, the French CD of A Short Album About Love has Labels and Virgin logos on the back inlay and copyright notes in French on the disc.

The disc comes with a 4 pages booklet which features the artwork from the digipack. On one side the front cover and the taxi photo which are to be found on the outside of the digipack. Unlike the other jewel box releases (Japan, Sony) the bottom of the front cover photo has not been filled with black, the right side which has been cut off instead. On the other side the full credits and the live photos which are on both sides of the digipack tray.






The serial number (7243 8 42997 2 9) is to be found on the bar code, and also on the side, on the bottom of the back of the booklet, and on the CD.

Around the centre of the CD (PM 521), we can read:
1-1-6-NL IFPI L046 EMI UDEN 8428732 @ 1
or
010202 IFPI L046 ifpi AAH28 EMI UDEN 8428732 @ 1

Some last French editions have printing mistakes on their sleeve. On the title THE DIVINE COMEDY, the ink has smudged in the same manner for each copy.

Digipack

The French digipack is a bit different from the UK digipack. There are some obvious differences: a red L again on the back, a different bar code, and copyright notes in French on the CD. The CD itself is also a bit different from the French standard release: the serial number is the digipack one of course, and the copyright is dated 1996 instead of 1997 (in the jewel box release): probably because the digipack was printed in late 1996. Also the size of the copyright notes is different.

Around the centre of the CD, we can read: 1-1-2-NL IFPI L046 EMI UDEN 8428732 @ 1
On the CD tray we can read: ‘DIGIPAK® Manufactured by Van de Steeg, Holland, under license from AGI,USA’. Indeed the French EMI releases are all ‘made in Holland’.

2 tracks sampler

The sleeve of this sampler has the same photo as the album and the same art print. On the back, there are the credits. But the CD inside looks different from the Short Album CD. It is transparent (that is silver), with ‘THE DIVINE COMEDY’ written in black and, underneath, the tracklisting, composed of two live tracks from the concert at the Shepherd’s Bush Empire: ‘Europe By Train’ (without Neil speaking at the beginning) and ‘Make It Easy On Yourself’, both also B-sides of Eveybody Knows (Except You).
Near the centre we can read: LBR 02 (logo) SNA SA 4009 04239718 SNA (logo) ifpi L600

Pre-order voucher

The boxset

In 2000, French indie label Poplane helped Setanta to redistribute records in France. Therefore some limited editions of Divine Comedy records not distributed by Labels were made available in France. This is the case of the boxset composed of the album and the 3 Everybody Knows single. The box is actually exactly the same as the UK release, but has a Poplane sticker on it.

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