One big german website had confirmed that Orange in france can't have a exclusive simlock on the france iphone. So the iphone is coming to france without a simlock feature, maybe the price is around 999,- EUR for a simunlocked iphone in france.

Its interesting for some research in the BaseBand, how apple unlock the iphone proper.

Source: http://www.heise.de/mobil/newsticker/meldung/97537
Image of a shop in france, and "price" without simlock: http://www.flickr.com/photos/piesto/1553236944/

AFAIK There was a report regarding that sign, here in France, that said that the phone they are carrying is the current US phone with unlocked firmware 1.0.2. Hence the "avant-premiere" - pre-premier or pre-release, on the sign.

That's correct, since then "Leclerc" has stopped selling it, it was just one shop, they were not allowed to do this.
And I really don't think that Orange will unlock their Iphones, they don't even do that with their regular phones, so...