PARIS (AFP).- The world's best-loved wizard has bewitched youngsters in France, where the script of the new Harry Potter play has topped the bestseller list... in English.

Over 36,000 English-language copies of the script of "Harry Potter and the Cursed Child" have been sold in France in the first week, propelling it to the top of the GFK/Livres Hebdo bestseller list.

"Only a Harry Potter could sell so many copies in English," Livres Hebdo, a literary magazine, said on its website Wednesday, noting it was the first time a play had led the Top 20.

"The Cursed Child" was written by Jack Thorne and director John Tiffany, in collaboration with Harry Potter author J. K. Rowling.

While failing to match the popularity of the Harry Potter novels it has notched up record sales for a play in Britain and the United States.

The hero of Hogwarts has also long been a favourite in France -- despite the French having a famously fraught relationship with his native tongue.

The seventh and final novel in the original series, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" sold 200,000 English-language copies in France within two weeks of its launch in 2007. It went on to sell around 315,000 copies in total.

In the play, which is currently running at a London theatre, the wizard grows up, marries and has three children.

In the US and Canada it sold more than two million copies in the first two days.

In Britain, it sold more than 680,000 copies during the same period.

The French edition is due out on October 14.



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