Sorry tuesday10 but i certainly can't agree with that.
I'm doing SEO in several languages for years, and i truly believe the partices are very different. Doing SEO without using websites on the same language (which you have to know), and without the ability to even read what is written in the site you're promoting and on the competitors sites doesn't sound like a good idea.
SEO is no longer about just backlinks, but about QUALITY and RELEVANT backlinks, and that is hard to be done when you don't know your websites language.
This is the reason i believe a french speaking SEO freelancer will do better than myself on this matter.