why are the flights with connections more than without

You expect this stuff to make sense?

Who knows. My sister got a better deal going to Dublin this summer connecting through Atlanta than if she would fly directly from Atlanta to Dublin. I think people usually opt to pay more for the direct flights so they don't have to deal with the pain of having a connection.

And don't anyone even think about buying the ticket to Barcelona and getting off at CDG to get the lower fare. If you do, AF will probably cancel the remainder of your itinerary, including the return flight and you'll have to buy a one way ticket home.

Steve hits it on the head pretty good. I remember a few years back Allegiant was just starting to fly from Bellingham to Vegas. Looking at ticket prices, on Alaska Air (which doesn't fly direct to Vegas from Bellingham), it was cheaper to fly Bellingham to Vegas through Seattle than it was to fly Seattle to Vegas on Alaska (for the exact same flights on the Seattle/Vegas leg). Alaska was responding to the lower Allegiant prices by matching or beating their fares which were lower than Alaska's Seattle to Vegas flights. Air France is probably either trying to establish more of a presence in Barcelona or deter others from gaining in that marketplace. Not being an expert on CDG's marketplace, but I'd guess Air France has quite a fair amount of business in/out of CDG, so they can dictate price a bit more then other places.

Sounds familiar!! We will be flying from Calgary via Frankfurt to Amsterdam because it was cheaper than flying just to Frankfurt. We're saving $200 per ticket x 4 so I don't care whose sanity needs to be questioned ....