Moreover, according to Françoise Qvistgaard, a Danish researcher who has studied Minitel's effect on Internet use, resistance to the Internet, widely regarded as an American invention with mainly English content, reflected French cultural protectionism.  ''The French system was very closed,'' Ms. Qvistgaard said. ''People said it was an American product.''  Clearly, the tide is turning. By last year, 40 percent of the French had personal computers at home and 22 percent were on the Internet. In part, at least, the shift followed a 1997 government decision to promote the Internet in schools and businesses. In the process, interest in the Internet rendered it more French. By last year, more than 57,000 Internet domains ended in ''.fr,'' for France, 10 times the number five years earlier.  Some argue that Minitel actually prepared the French for online services, providing a cultural humus that enabled Internet use to spread luxuriantly once it had taken root. Moreover, as Internet services veer increasingly toward pay-for-use, and access channels to the Internet multiply, Minitel appears to have found, at least temporarily, fresh applications that may soften if not forestall its ultimate demise.  Videotex, a system that uses telephone lines to send text and graphics from central computers to terminals, was not unique to France in the 1980's. Yet by giving away the little Minitel terminals, the French telecommunication authorities ignited a craze that swept France. Propelled as well by its popularity as an electronic home for personal ads and pornography sites, more than three million Minitels, essentially 8-inch television screens with keyboards that usually folded up when not in use, were in French homes and offices by the mid-1980's. By the late 1990's, Minitel had 15 million users, and was host to 25,000 services.  The career of Xavier Viollet neatly illustrates the transition. In the 1980's, Mr. Viollet worked as a technician with the postal authorities developing Minitel. By 1994, he had switched to banking, helping BNP Paribas, one of France's leading banks, build its online banking services. A Minitel terminal shares his desktop with a personal computer for Internet access.  ''With the Internet, we accomplished in 18 months what it took 15 years to do with Minitel,'' he said of BNP's online banking venture. Minitel, he argues, ''prepared a whole generation for Internet services.''  Mr. Viollet estimates that Minitel could survive for a good 10 years more. ''Today, if we decided to suppress it, many clients would be unhappy,'' he said. ''It's simple, and it's used by people who would never use a personal computer.''  Indeed, BNP Paribas, the biggest online bank in France, with about one-fourth of the market, has 330,000 clients banking via Minitel, against 420,000 on the Internet. The reason, Mr. Viollet says, is Minitel's simplicity. Still, the experience at BNP shows the limits of Minitel. While BNP's Minitel business is stagnant, the bank books 100,000 new clients a month for the Internet.  Of course, the Internet, with its sophisticated graphics and other features, enables BNP to provide services beyond the capabilities of Minitel's limited technology. On Minitel, each transaction is a separate procedure; on the Internet, clients can check stock quotes, read up on favorite companies, and shuffle their portfolios, switching between browsers with a single click.  Mr. Viollet says BNP will hang onto Minitel as part of a multiple-channel approach to long-distance banking that includes phone banking, the Internet and Minitel. As the latest generation of mobile phones hits the market, BNP will offer Internet banking via wireless phones, he said.  Still, while there may be no denying that the Internet is destined to conquer Minitel, the victim is transforming the victor as well as the other way around. Five years ago, said Luca S. Paderni, an analyst at Forrester Research in Paris, 98 percent of Internet content was in English. Since then, as the French have shifted to the Internet, the number of French pages has mushroomed.  A young generation of French users has emerged, including business executives, whose outlook on the Internet has broadened. Mr. Paderni points to data from Amazon France showing that the overlap of French users of Amazon.fr, the local affiliate, and Amazon.com is about 25 percent, indicating an opening among French users to English and American influence.  In France, Mr. Paderni says, multiple-channel strategies for companies doing business online cannot exclude Minitel, given its 15 million users.  Over at Yahoo France, executives agree. Indeed, since Yahoo paid $80 million in 1999 to acquire Online Anywhere, which developed technology for publishing content on screen phones, pagers and by voice, Yahoo has embraced the multiple-channel approach, said Ms. de Mersan, who is responsible for business development. Earlier this year, Yahoo began test-marketing services that enable Minitel users to go on the Internet and send and receive e-mail messages.  The experience dovetails with efforts by France Télécom to keep Minitel afloat with its own product, Et Hop Minitel, which adapts Internet content to Minitel's format. Of course, to offer the Minitel service, Yahoo had to overcome minor obstacles, Ms. de Mersan said. Early Minitel terminals, for instance, lack keys for @ or the underscore common to e-mail addresses, requiring Yahoo to devise alternatives.  Later this year, Yahoo plans an ad campaign that will highlight Minitel's new attractions, with slogans like ''Did you know you can send an e-mail message to your grandmother?''  When Yahoo first tinkered with Minitel, Ms. de Mersan said, ''it seemed like a step backward.'' Minitel's initial success rested on the fact that the French authorities gave out the terminals free. But unlike the Internet, Minitel is not free to use. Indeed, Minitel's pay-for-service system may yet prove to be its most valuable and lasting asset.  Olivier Bon, who is responsible for Minitel at France Télécom, heir to the national telecommunications authority, harbors no doubts about Minitel's ultimate disappearance. Last year, the number of minutes clients spent on Minitel dropped 11 percent, after falling 7 percent in 1999. More important, the amount of money they spent on Minitel also fell 11 percent, after a 3 percent drop the year before. As recently as 1998, the amount rose 2 percent.  Mr. Bon sees his job as transforming Minitel to create new services that will maintain France Télécom's revenue stream. The heart of the plan is Minitel's role as a clearinghouse for online purchases.  Unlike the Internet, which enables customers to pay for products purchased electronically using credit cards, Minitel allows customers to be charged on their monthly phone bill. A French consumer buying, for instance, a train ticket via Minitel is billed by France Télécom, which collects the money and then pays the French national railway. Hence, while France Télécom reported gross revenue from Minitel last year of roughly $645 million, $415 million of that was passed on to companies that sell goods and services.  In October, France Télécom signed an agreement with iPIN -- a company in Belmont, Calif., specializing in online payment systems mainly for digital products, like music and software, without using credit cards -- to create a secure payment system.  ''We are looking at a three- to five-year transition period, with a notable business that will remain,'' Mr. Bon said, in an office equipped with a Minitel terminal, laptop and desktop computer with Minitel access.  Ms. de Mersan of Yahoo finds the system intriguing, since Yahoo is also testing ''the sensitivity of clients to paying for Web services,'' she said.  ''Don't forget, Minitel users are already accustomed to paying,'' she said.  BNP's Mr. Viollet compared Minitel's payment system with mobile- phone-based Internet services like one offered by NTT DoCoMo in Japan that gives service providers a way to collect fees through customers' mobile phone bills. He does not see competition from telecommunications companies for banking services. In France, 37 million smart cards circulate, he noted. Mobile phones are already available that enable consumers to make payments by inserting a smart card.  Mr. Paderni of Forrester Research said France Télécom and Minitel could play a significant role in Internet payments if they moved quickly. ''The basic problem is speed,'' he said, adding, ''everyone else is coming out with systems.''  ''Minitel has always been a paying service, whether for flowers or train tickets, and it all came on your phone bill,'' he said. ''They have a strong position, and they are considered a safe channel.''
Minitel, French national videotex system that transformed France's business and culture after its introduction in 1981, proves resilient in face of Internet's more advanced capacities; is seen as more convenient than Internet for accomplishing certain tasks; photos; graph (M)