Abstract This paper studies awareness and use of author identifier services (AIDs) in the French academic community and explores needs and forms of support required for these tools, using a national questionnaire survey. ArXivID, IdHAL, ORCID, ResearcherID and Scopus Author ID were investigated. A total of 6125 people completed the questionnaire in full. The results of this survey show that discipline and age play an important role in French researchers' familiarity with AIDs. IdHAL and ORCID were by far the two best known AIDs, probably because they have been promoted by institutions in France for several years. French researchers use AIDs mainly to respond to external requests (e.g., to submit an article or a research project), while, surprisingly, few use them to ‘facilitate their work’. When French researchers were asked about their needs and the form of support required for AIDs, more than 30% of them said they either required an introduction to or practical training in these tools. The results of this national survey should help stakeholders to adapt their policies and to guide and support researchers more efficiently in the use of these tools.