Soon after its launch, the portal contained 350 000 data factsheets on a wide range of topics, from the State's budget to the geographic coordinates of the country's airports. This is just a beginning as more public sector data will be added gradually in the next months. A very efficient search engine enables users to find the documents corresponding to their query in just a few clicks.  

The aim is to provide a new governance model which is open, participative and adapted to the Internet and Information Society era. Data.gouv.fr is intended to increase public sector transparency as well as facilitating the re-use of public sector information by Internet users, and thus meet citizen needs in terms of innovation and co-creation.  

All of the portal's data can be re-used to create web applications for smartphones or tablets, which will be of use to all. Moreover, in order to promote co-creation, a contest has been launched to reward the best applications based on re-used data from data.gouv.fr.

Background information 

Mr Franck Riester, a member of the National Assembly, France's lower house of Parliament, together with a group of Information Society experts recommended in a report of February 2010 the creation of an inter-ministerial group tasked with the implementation of an open data project.  A year later, the Etalab team (mission Etalab, in French) was created and, for 9 months, they worked on the implementation of data.gouv.fr. 

Further information:  

• Original news article - Directorate-General for State Modernisation (in French)
• Data.gouv.fr
• Data.gov.uk
• Related news article - EU: Commission launches open data strategy to boost the economy
• Background information - ePractice eGovernment Factsheet for France