I changed the title of the message after discovering in this post Discourse’s dedicated translation tool.
Hello everyone,
I see that there is a Spanish-speaking section of the general forum :
https://forum.inaturalist.org/c/general/general-espanol/24
As a French speaker, would it be possible to create a section dedicated to exchanges in French?
(and I suppose that other nationalities would be interested in chatting here in their mother tongue).
Many thanks for your advice 
Among other languages that would likely prove popular: Russian.
(France and French speakers also have their own domestic apps and websites e.g. PlantNet, NaturaList, VisioNature etc.)
This is an interesting thought. I personally don’t see much usage of the Spanish tag, but there is a little (40-45 posts that legitimately belong there in the entire existence of the forum). I think one consideration is having moderators who are fluent enough in a language to be able to moderate in that language. Without that, I think it could be difficult to promote it.
It seems to me that the platform used for the forum (Discourse) has translation tools: I haven’t found them here.
Perhaps this would be more relevant than creating sections in each language?
[edit]
I found it :
https://meta.discourse.org/t/discourse-translator/32630
It would be great to activate this plugin
it looks like there’s a cost associated with this. who’s going to pay for it?
a lot of desktop browsers nowadays have a translation feature built in. not sure about mobile, but it seems like there must be an app for this, if doesn’t come built in.
And it looks like the cost is somewhat high/has taken at least one other forum by surprise:
https://meta.discourse.org/t/discourse-translator/32630/379
TLDR: $10/day for staff reads only
OK, I understand that this cost is prohibitive.
In that case I come back to the first proposal: to have a “French-speaking” category.
I have no idea whether moderators would be available (sorry, I wouldn’t have enough time to take on this role).
The Spanish categories on the Forum never really caught on, so I’m a little hesitant to try officially supporting another language, even if we were able to get a French speaking moderator or two. You’re welcome to post in French if you want, and non-French speakers can use Google Translate or similar options if they want to follow along.
Indeed, I have just explored the possibilities of my browser (Firefox), and I have activated a plugin to avoid going back and forth between a translation site and the forum.
It’s probably easier to stay on an English-speaking forum (which is an opportunity for me to work on my English 
)
I can cope with small (very small) slices of French in comments on African obs.
If baffled I click Translate to English.
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