data.gouv.fr French Government Open Data Portal

Overview and History

data.gouv.fr is France's official national open data platform, managed by Etalab, a department of the interministerial digital directorate (DINUM) under the authority of the Prime Minister. The platform was first launched on 5 December 2011, following a May 2011 circular from Prime Minister François Fillon authorizing the creation of an inter-ministerial open data portal. A redesigned, collaborative version based on the open-source CKAN platform was released in December 2013, opening the portal to contributions from citizens, researchers, journalists, and non-governmental organizations — not just government agencies. The platform has been continuously updated since then.

Collections and Holdings

As of late 2025, data.gouv.fr references approximately 71,000 datasets and APIs and more than 375,000 files. Datasets span a wide range of topics, including public finance, health, transportation, environment, elections, demographics, and more. Public administrations, local governments, non-profits, and individuals can all publish datasets on the platform. Datasets from agencies with their own portals are also linked and referenced.

Notable Materials

Data.gouv.fr hosts datasets relevant to media and journalism research, including election results, political party campaign accounts, administrative documents released under freedom-of-information principles, and statistics from cultural and social institutions. The platform includes a section for reuses — applications, visualizations, and press articles built on government data.

Access and Usage

All data on data.gouv.fr is published under the Etalab Open Licence or the Open Database Licence (ODbL), permitting free commercial and non-commercial reuse. No registration is required to download datasets. The platform provides an API (based on CKAN) for programmatic access.