Having worked throughout 2010 on, and completed in November, a report on microlighting in Europe (and the LSA in the USA), the French total number of microlight fatal accidents (note, not fatalities) in the 10 years 2000-2009 was 147, thus an average of 14.7 p.a. Estimated annual hours - exposure to risk -of the microlight fleet rose from c. 255,000 in 2000 to c. 700,000 in 2009. The fatal accident rate averaged over 10 years was 3.2 per 100,000 hours with an annual peak of 6.0 in 2001 and a low of 2.0 in 2006.
Comparable UK microlighting statistics were 20 fatal accidents / 2.0 p.a. / rate of 1.61 p.a. over 10 year period using estimated exposure data.
Fatal gliding accidents in France averaged 4.5 p.a. in the ten years. The accident rate cannot be calculated due to lack of reliable exposure data.
UK gliding fatal accidents averaged 2.7 p.a over ten years in the UK, a rate of just less than 2.0 per 100,000 hours. In addtion there were 6 fatal accidents / 10 years in UK gliders flying abroad, some of which may be reflected in the French stats above.
Care needs to be taken with the statistics due to inclusion / exclusion of FRA in the data, particularly with gliders as the French Alps is a popular destination for glider pilots from other countries. And mountain flying does tend to produce a higher incidence of fatal accidents.
In both UK and France it is difficult to arrive at fatal accident rates for aeroplanes < say 2mt or < 5.7mt due to lack of reliable exposure data. But there were 46 aeroplane < 2mt UK fatal accidents in the 10 years.