Napoleon would be proud.

France Telecom's wireless subsidiary Orange laid out expansion plans on Friday that will extend its iPhone market beyond France's borders and into Europe, the Middle East, Africa and the Caribbean. The news came a one-sentence press release:

"Orange today announced a new agreement with Apple to bring the iPhone to Orange customers in Austria, Belgium, the Dominican Republic, Egypt, Jordan, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Switzerland and Orange's African markets later this year." (link)

Orange's African markets include — in addition to Egypt — the Ivory Coast, Jordan, Cameroon, Botswana, Madagascar, Mali, Senegal, Mauritius, and RĂ©union.

In the Caribbean, Orange services — in addition to the Dominican Republic — Martinique, French Guiana, Dominica, Saint Kitts and Nevis, but those islands were not mentioned in the release.

Also missing from the announcement was any word about Spain, the largest European country still without an iPhone carrier.

Some or all of these deals are nonexclusive. Swisscom has already announced plans to offer the iPhone in Switzerland, Vodafone will carrying it in Portugal and Egypt and America Movil has already called the Dominican Republic.

[UPDATE: According to AppleInsider, a spokesperson for France Telecom says that the carrier will be the exclusive iPhone provider in Belgium and Romania, with co-exclusive or non-exclusive deals in other countries.]

All told, France Telecom (FTE) has more than 172 million customers in five continents, two thirds of whom are Orange customers.

The real empire builder in all this, of course, is Apple's (AAPL) Steve Jobs, who has timed each news release over the past few weeks so that his cards are laid on the table one deal at a time. It's all part of the build-up to his June 9 keynote and the expected unveiling of a second-generation, 3G iPhone.

[UPDATE: Below the fold, CdnPhoto's latest version of the map, with Spain and Poland removed because they are still at the rumor stage.]

Like many Apple (AAPL) watchers, the investors at IMO's Apple Finance Forum have been closely following this week's flurry of announcements of iPhone deals with carriers around the world. One of the contributors to the forum — a regular from Toronto who posts as CdnPhoto — has summarized the information graphically in a color-coded map of the world. With his permission, I've pasted it below.

Countries where the iPhone is now available, or will be this summer, are marked in red:

[E-mail subscribers: click here to see the map.]

Switzerland, Spain and Poland probably should be tinted a light shade of pink; these were rumors, not official announcements (see here).

Of course, if unlocked blackmarket iPhones were included, most of the world would be colored Apple red. See The iPhones of Equatorial Guinea.

For those who prefer their information in list form, here are the countries added in the past couple weeks:

For Vodafone (VOD) (link):

Australia

Czech Republic

Egypt

Greece

India

Italy (also Telecom Italia)

New Zealand

Portugal

South Africa

Turkey

For America Movil (AMX) (link):

Argentina

Brazil

Chile

Colombia

Dominican Republic

Ecuador

El Salvador

Guatemala

Honduras

Jamaica

Mexico

Nicaragua

Paraguay

Peru

Puerto Rico

Uruguay

For Rogers Wireless:

Canada

Rumors (link):

Switzerland

Spain

Poland

No word yet:

China

Korea

Japan

Russia

For updates, check APPLinvestors, which keeps a running tally here.

Updated version of the map below the fold:

More

The British and the Germans queued up dutifully for their Apple (AAPL) iPhones, but when the devices finally arrived in Paris last week, the French went nuts.

On day one, France Telecom's Orange division sold 12,000 iPhones, according to Metro International, easily beating T-Mobile's first-day sales in Germany, a country with one third more people (82 million vs. 61 million) and 50 percent more Internet users (52 million vs. 34 million) (stats). After just 21 hours, 17 percent of Orange France stores had sold out, according to O'Grady's Powerpage.

And today, France Telecom announced that it sold nearly 30,000 iPhones in the first five days, 48 percent of them to new customers (link). That's nearly one iPhone for every 2,000 Frenchmen (and women). In the United States, Apple and AT&T sold 270,000 iPhones in that first frenzied weekend last June, or one for every 1,111 Americans.

Yesterday, a German court overturned the temporary injunction that had forced T-Mobile to offer its customers the option of buying iPhones unlocked. France is once again the only country where users can buy the phones without a contract that ties them to a particular carrier, although France Telecom reports that only 2 out of 10 French buyers paid the 100 euro ($147) fee to have their iPhones unlocked. (See Paris: City of unlocked iPhones.)

Below the fold: iPhone frenzy, Parisian style, courtesy of YouTube.

More

Apple's (AAPL) iPhone goes on sale in France late tonight at select Orange boutiques at prices that look very different from those charged in the U.S. ($399), the U.K. (289 pounds) or Germany (399 euros locked, 999 euros unlocked).

France Telecom, which owns Orange, knew even before it signed its exclusive deal with Apple that it was going to be required to offer customers the option of buying the iPhone with or without a contract. Agence France Press (link, in French) reports that Orange has structured its prices accordingly.

• 749 euros ($1,109) unlocked iPhone, no contract
• 649 euros ($956) locked iPhone, no contract
• 549 euros ($809) unlocked iPhone, with Orange contract
• 399 euros ($588) locked iPhone, with Orange contract
• 100 euros ($147) to unlock a locked iPhone

After six months, Orange will unlock an iPhone for free.

T-Mobile, which had already signed its exclusive deal with Apple when it learned that it would be required to offer German customers the contract-free option, is charging a 600 euro premium for unlocked iPhones. Yesterday a competitor, Debitel, offered a 600 euro rebate to people who bought unlocked iPhones from T-Mobile but agreed to sign a contract with Debitel instead (see The $890 iPhone Rebate).

Official sales of the iPhone in France begin tomorrow, Nov. 29.