France has a mixed record in ICT, amongst the top of the class for business use, e-government and e-administration but far below EU averages in certain other key ICT domains, notably in consumer uses. Poor take-up by consumers seems to be an anomaly, particularly as France boasts a strong ICT infrastructure. Broadband penetration has grown rapidly and the coverage is widespread. Dominated by Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) broadband use is nevertheless below EU averages, all the more surprising as the price for high connectivity is amongst the lowest of Europe. This anomaly looks set to disappear as trends show consumer take-up of on-line activity, from media download to shopping, is increasing at well above EU averages.
E-administration: France is among the top 5 in Europe in e-administration as measured both by breadth of e-administration available and its sophistication or “user-friendliness”. The French government launched a web site in January 2007 to centralise administrative procedures on-line. The site was an immediate success with over 800,000 visitors within its first month of going live.
The site, www.administration24h24.gouv.fr counts over 600 administrative procedures today with a further 300 added by early 2008. By the end of 2008, the site should host the complete government administrative paperwork for France for individuals, families, businesses and local administrations. The site is organised around nine themes: family, health, legal papers, citizenship, housing, travel and taxes. Demand for e-administration has grown considerably in France. In 2006, 5.7million French tax-payers, equivalent to 20%, paid their taxes on line, 2 million more than in 2005. The figure for 2007 is estimated at over 8 million.
E-education: Schools in France have goods broadband access and all schools (98%) have teaching-related computers for their students. But ICT was only officially made a priority subject for education in 2005, although not on a par with math, languages, history etc.
In 2004, the government launched a programme, dubbed Mipe, which allowed students to buy a portable computer for the equivalent of 1€ per day. To date, over 500,000 students have been equipped and the government has adapted the programme to try to reach low-income families as well. Universities in France are also well equipped with internet infrastructure as 78% of the nation’s campuses benefit from free high connectivity internet access. The current policy aims to have all higher education establishments in France equipped with internet access throughout the full campus facilities, most of it through Wifi or Wimax, by the end of 2008.
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