The purpose of our study was to develop and test a simple methodology to derive areal rainfall quantiles from point rainfall quantiles, via the concept of probabilistic areal reduction factor (ARF). This concept enables to estimate areal rainfall of a particular frequency and for a given duration from point rainfalls of the same frequency and duration. Assessing such ARF for the whole French territory is of particular interest since it should allow us to compute areal rainfall quantiles, and eventually watershed rainfall quantiles, by using already available grids of statistical point rainfall that are provided by a regionalized stochastic hourly point rainfall generator, the SHYREG method previously developed by Irstea and Météo-France for the French Ministry of ecology, sustainable development and energy.