France Results Report 2021-2023

France’s third action planAction plans are at the core of a government’s participation in OGP. They are the product of a co-creation process in which government and civil society jointly develop commitments to open governmen... contained 59 commitments involving more institutions and more thematic areas than any previous action plans. A commitmentOGP commitments are promises for reform co-created by governments and civil society and submitted as part of an action plan. Commitments typically include a description of the problem, concrete action... on accelerating citizen-led initiatives and another on greater involvement of citizens in the government audit work of the Cour des Comptes had early resultsEarly results refer to concrete changes in government practice related to transparency, citizen participation, and/or public accountability as a result of a commitment’s implementation. OGP’s Inde.... The implementation period required greater multistakeholder oversight and resources to effectively monitor such a broad and complex plan.

Early Results

Compared to the previous action plan, this action plan has a higher number of commitments with significant or moderate early results.[1] The early results of Commitments 47 and 52 are analyzed in further depth in this Results Report.

The IRM identified Commitment 52 on greater involvement of citizens in the work of the Cour des Comptes (CDC), the government’s audit office, as having significant early results. The creation of a platform and active engagement with thousands of citizens led to the start of 25 specific audit investigations of public interest in 2023. The Public Prosecutor has referred three cases to the judiciaryWhile a majority of open government reforms occur within the executive branch, OGP members are increasingly taking on commitments to increase the openness of the judicial branch. Technical specificati... following citizen reports of mismanagement of public funds since 2022. The IRM also identified Commitment 47 on cultivating the emergence of citizen-led public interest initiatives as having moderate early results. The Citizens’ Initiatives Accelerator provided technical and financial support to 15 citizen-led initiatives, providing opportunities to scale up their operations and create synergies with government departments. Both commitments successfully utilized high-level political support and resources allocated to produce early results.

There were moderate early results for 29 other commitments on topics such as health, educationAccountability within the public education system is key to improving outcomes and attainment, and accountability is nearly impossible without transparent policies and opportunities for participation ..., justiceTo address barriers that prevent citizens from having their justice needs met, OGP participating governments are working to expand transparency, accountability, and inclusion into all systems of justi..., public procurementTransparency in the procurement process can help combat corruption and waste that plagues a significant portion of public procurement budgets globally. Technical specifications: Commitments that aim t..., and citizen involvement in audit processes. Some key datasets were published as open dataBy opening up data and making it sharable and reusable, governments can enable informed debate, better decision making, and the development of innovative new services. Technical specifications: Polici... during implementation, such as France’s official development aidMore and better information about aid helps partner countries and donor institutions plan and manage aid resources more effectively, parliaments and civil society to hold governments accountable for t... data.

Completion

The unprecedented size of this action plan allowed for a broad list of topics to be covered in its 59 commitments, which revolved around official development aid transparencyAccording to OGP’s Articles of Governance, transparency occurs when “government-held information (including on activities and decisions) is open, comprehensive, timely, freely available to the pub... More, climate and biodiversity, health, justice, education, open science, and civic participation in audit work. Open data was a cross-cutting priority among several commitments.

Compared to the previous action plan, commitment completionImplementers must follow through on their commitments for them to achieve impact. For each commitment, OGP’s Independent Reporting Mechanism (IRM) evaluates the degree to which the activities outlin... rates improved: 56% of commitments in this current action plan were completed and 29% were substantially completed. In the 2018–2020 cycle, 14% of commitments were completed and 52% were substantially completed. Assessing completion was sometimes challenging because a significant number of commitments did not have clear milestones whereas some were already completed before the implementation period began. The Ministry for Solidarity and Health completed eight of their nine commitments—the most of all participating institutions. All the promising commitments identified in the Action Plan Review (Commitments, 4, 47 and 52) were either fully or substantially completed.

Participation and Co-Creation

The Interministerial Directorate for Public Transformation (DITP)—within the Ministry of Transformation and Public Service—oversaw the OGP process for France’s 2021–2023 action plan co-creation and implementation process. There were limited and inconsistent opportunities for engagement and dialogue between civil society and government to oversee France’s 2021-2023 action plan.

Compared to the previous action plan cycle, the number of opportunities for civil society to co-create have decreased. As part of the 2018–2022 Action Plan co-creation processCollaboration between government, civil society and other stakeholders (e.g., citizens, academics, private sector) is at the heart of the OGP process. Participating governments must ensure that a dive..., six Forum Open d’État meetings were organized, whereas only two such meetings were organized during the 2021–2023 action plan cycle. While the co-creation process did not meet OGP’s minimum requirementsAll OGP participating countries are expected to adhere to the Participation and Co-Creation Standards. Each Standard includes clear and measurable minimum requirements that all OGP participating count..., the government was able to demonstrate some progress towards meeting minimum requirements during the implementation period by developing an online repositoryAccess to relevant information is essential for enabling participation and ensuring accountability throughout the OGP process. An OGP repository is an online centralized website, webpage, platform or ....

Implementation in Context

Presidential and parliamentary elections were organized in 2022 midway through the implementation period. The elections resulted in only a relative majority for the Prime Minister in parliament. Several independent international organizations have warned against shrinking civic space as well as restrictions on freedoms of assembly and association in France.[2]

[1] “IRM Transitional Results Report: France 2018–2020,” Open Government Partnership, 15 June 2021, https://www.opengovpartnership.org/documents/france-transitional-results-report-2018-2020.
[2] “Restrictions of Civil Society Space in France,” Human Rights Watch, 4 May 2023, https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/05/04/restrictions-civil-society-space-france; “Annual report 2023: France,” Amnesty International, 2024, https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/pol10/7200/2024/en; “Concerns about rule of law in France as protests met with brutality,” Civicus, 28 October 2023 https://monitor.civicus.org/explore/concerns-about-rule-of-law-in-france-as-protests-met-with-brutality.