The Health Utilities Index is a generic multiattribute preference-based system for assessing health-related quality of life, originally devised by Torrance et al.. It is being widely used in cost-effectiveness evaluations in North America and in international multicentre studies but was not available in France. Following cross-cultural adaptation and validation of the HUI3 classification in the French population, the purpose of this investigation was to derive population weights for the French instrument. In June 1999, we implemented a population (n = 365) preference survey. Respondants were randomly selected by phone to be representative of the structure French general population and face-to-face interviews were conducted. Visual Analogue Scale (VAS) and Standard Gamble (SG) were used to reveal preferences on a scale running from 1 (perfect health) to 0 (all worst or death depending on the interviewee s decision). The 8 single-attribute value functions were directly revealed as well as the corner states values. Rating of particular multi-attribute health states was also done using both VAS and SG. Firstly, our survey demonstrates the feasability of eliciting values and utilities in a French sample. Secondly, analysis conclude that collected data permit 1) to fit multi-attribute value and utility functions for many individuals and 2) to discuss the appropriateness of the multiplicative functional form. Results obtained at the person-mean and person-median levels from the French survey will be presented and discussed. Emphasis will be placed on the influence of socio-demographics characteristics of the interviewees on elicited preferences. The French HUI3 scoring function will also be compared to the Canadian one.