Comment 68 for bug 221112

As far as I understand the situation.

=> a french keyboard layout was designed to take care of specific needs of french typography, and that's ok.
=> some applications such as Rhythmbox should be changed not to use a given key or combination of keys (here we are talking about space key as a trigger for play/pause on Rhythmbox)
=> BUT ... a decision is to be taken :
          => use a media key that can be found on new keyboards (but not everybody as such a keyboard)
          => pick a new key combination at the cost of being less user friendly

In short, it looks like a dead end and we only have workarounds for us.