The presence of glycopeptide-intermediate Staphylococcus aureus (GISA) strains isolated from hospitalized patients in France was reported to the French Institute for Public Health Surveillance in 1999, prompting a need to assess the extent of the problem. In 2000–2001, a study was conducted to estimate the incidence of GISA and their proportion among methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). It was carried out by the CClin and the InVS as part of the Network for Alert, Investigation, and Surveillance of Nosocomial Infections (RAISIN). An optional GISA module was offered to hospital laboratories participating in the CClin’s interregional surveillance networks for multidrug-resistant bacteria (MDRB). For one month, for each first MRSA isolate from a diagnostic specimen collected from a patient, a standardized bacteriological protocol following CA-SFM recommendations was used to screen for strains suspected of being GISA (MRSA growing on Mueller-Hinton medium containing 5 mg/L teicoplanin) and to confirm their GISA status (Minimum Inhibitory Concentration and/or vancomycin MIC of the strain > 4 mg/L). For each included MRSA strain, a standardized questionnaire was completed. One hundred sixty-five participating institutions, representing 40% of French public hospital beds, included 2,066 patients from whom MRSA had been isolated. Among the 2,066 strains, 45 (2.2%) were intermediate in susceptibility to teicoplanin (median MIC 8 mg/L, range 6–16 mg/L) and susceptible to vancomycin. The incidence of confirmed GISA cases was 2.3 per 100,000 Hospitalization Days (HD) – 95% CI [1.7–3.0]. One-quarter of GISA isolates were obtained from samples with high diagnostic value, and 71% (32/45) were reported as hospital-acquired strains. Analysis of antibiotic susceptibility profiles shows that most strains belong to the S. aureus clone that is homogeneously methicillin-resistant and gentamicin-resistant, which caused hospital outbreaks until 1995. Did the selection pressure exerted by glycopeptides over a long period likely contribute to this phenomenon? This study confirms the presence of GISA cases in France in 2000–2001, based on a sample of MRSA-colonized patients that was representative in terms of both number and geographic location. (R.A.)