Tag Archives: France

Liberté, Egalité, Transparencé? France joins Open Government Partnership.

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France has seen its share of revolutions, governments and leaders, from Gallic chieftains to Frankish kings, emperors to presidents, monarchy to people’s assembly, fascism to republic. Now, France will be the 64th country to join the historic Open Government Partnership that launched in September 2011.

Last week, in the 55th item in a joint statement, French president François Hollande and Mexican president Enrique Peña Nieto announced that France would be joining the Open Government Partnership:

“Persuadés que la transparence, l’intégrité et la participation des citoyens aux décisions qui les concernent sont les piliers de la démocratie, le Mexique et la France ont décidé d’adhérer à l’Initiative pour un Gouvernement ouvert, dont le Mexique assumera la présidence en 2015 et sera siège du Sommet l’an prochain. Forts de leur expérience en matière d’ouverture et de partage des données publiques, la France et le Mexique entendent encourager pleinement cette initiative.»

Roughly translated to English, that is:

“Convinced that transparency, integrity and participation of citizens in decisions that concern them are the pillars of democracy, Mexico and France have decided to join the Open Government Partnership, of which Mexico assumes the presidency in 2015 and will be the seat of the Summit next year. With their experience of the opening of materials and sharing of public data, France and Mexico agree to fully encourage this initiative.”

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“France is joining the Open Government Partnership with great determination,” Marylise Lebranchu, Ministre de de la Décentralisation, de la Réforme de l’Etat et de la Fonction Publique, France, said, in a statement. “France is willing to contribute to its dynamism with full commitment and by engaging in a fruitful dialogue with its partners. What’s at stake is innovation and building the public action of tomorrow. It’s not only about being accountable, it is also about deeply renewing the way we design, drive and assess public action.”

Commenting on France joining, the civil-society co-chair of OGP, Rakesh Rajani, said that “opening up government to citizen ideas and oversight is not easy and not always popular. France has shown … that it is willing to take the extra step of joining the Open Government Partnership, and putting citizens at the heart of government reform efforts.”

Minister Kuntoro, the government co-chair of OGP, in a statement, said that “OGP is stronger today with France as a participant, and I look forward to working with them to advance reform efforts in France and globally. The demand from citizens for open, innovative and accountable governments is common across the world. France can help strengthen OGP and inspire other countries to join this vibrant movement.”

Official adoption of gouvernment ouvert and open data by France means that “données publiques” (public data) and “données ouvert” (open data) will become part of the lingua franca of Francophone countries around the world. (Canada started that the ball rolling a few years ago.) Tranparence, collaboration and participation, the three pillars of open government proposed by the White House open government initiative five years ago, need far less in the way of translation, differing only in one letter.

Whether there is much of a discussion of how “libéralisme” — meaning economic liberalism and the market system — relates to données ouvert remains to be seen, particularly given that the Socialist party is currently in power in France. As the relationship between of open data and economic activity has become better established and the potential value of its release valued in the trillions of dollars (or euros), governments around the world have become interested in tapping their own national reserves.

One challenge for France, as it is everywhere the 21st century version of technology-driven open government is being embraced, will be to come to grips with the privacy rights of citizens, from surveillance to public data release, nor put critical infrastructure at risk through open data releases.

Another will be to pay equal or greater attention to the release of “données publiques” that is not only “ouvert” in the sense of format, license and reuse, but also in the sense of making the government more transparent and accountable to the citizens of the representative democratic republic, or to the oversight of their elected representatives, where public disclosures might affect national security, privacy or the trade secrets of companies under regulation.

The most uncomfortable challenge, however, may be reconciling this newfound, public commitment to more “openness” with closed or secret systems of government in France, from intelligence to criminal justice, just as it has true in other participating countries, from the United States to the Philippines.

As the Fifth French Republic submits a letter of intent and joins the Open Government Partnership, the Hollande administration is committing itself to creating a National Open Government Action Plan, following through on a public consultation and collaboration with civil society, and then to working towards milestones and goals in it.

Whether France makes meaningful commitments in its consultation, from publicizing it to giving citizens a real say in the future direction of the country, or follows through on them, will be, as is true everywhere, an open question.

[Illustration Credits: OpenDataFrance.net and Republique Citoyenne]

This post and headline have been updated, after official confirmation of France’s intent to join, with statements from government and OGP.

Jérémie Zimmermann on the Internet and civil society in France [VIDEO]

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When it comes to the Internet, France has followed its own path in making policies, particularly with respect to intellectual property. Those choice were highlighted at the eG8 forum, where 20th century ideas clashed with the 21st century economy. The forum, held before the G-8 summit of global leaders, showed that online innovation and freedom of expression still need strong defenders.

As Nancy Scola reported at techPresident, at the eG8, civil society groups restaked their claim to the ‘Net. Looking for more answers, I spoke with Jérémie Zimmermann, co-founder and spokesperson for citizen advocacy group LaQuadrature du Net, about the Internet in France. For American Internet users, this interview should be by turns illuminating, provocative and a reminder of the freedoms we enjoy here.

President Sarkozy at the eG8 Summit [VIDEO]

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Today, the eG8 is considering the future of the Internet and society in Paris, in advance of the G-8 Summit. President Nicolas Sarkozy opened the summit after an introduction by Maurice Lévy, Chairman & CEO, Publicis Groupe, holding up the power of the Internet but emphasizing the role of the state in providing security, privacy and protection for intellectual property. Video is embedded below:

The moment that many may remember from the question and answer period that followed was when professor Jeff Jarvis asked President Sarkozy whether he’d take a “Hippocratic oath” to “first, do no harm” when making policy choices that affect the Internet.

Related coverage at the Guardian: Sarkozy opens eG8 Summit

eG8 to consider the future of the Internet and connected society

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Cheers to Nova Spivack for unveiling the e-G8 agenda and his thoughts on the upcoming e-G8 Forum in Paris, France.

UPDATE: I will be attending the eG8, assuming that a volcanic eruption in Iceland doesn’t bollux up my air travel. Fingers crossed, and analysis below.

As Spivack noted in his post, there had been very little press coverage of the event when it was annoucned. His thoughts on the future of the Internet, government and society are well worth reading, particularly with respect to the major issues of the day. I post an excerpt from his post below:

Social networks are the cultural nervous systems of our new 21st century civilization. The problem is, they are being created and governed by commercial interests, not by their constituents.

If commercial social networks truly do become the fabric of our new societies, what happens to our civilization? It becomes privatized and controlled by commercial interests, not elected governments. Is that a world you want to live in?

The Internet is a new global resource, which, like the oceans, the atmosphere and the rainforests, must be protected in order to be of greatest benefit. It is something which every human should be able to share in, equally, and in fact, equal access to the Internet may soon become necessary in order to participate equally in any society or government.

Head on over to read the whole thing. If you have thoughts on the forum or know who else is going, share it on Twitter at #eg8 or in the comments.

As I said, I’ll be going and plan to share as much of what I see and hear as is reasonably possible. There are many people on both sides of the Atlantic who are asking whether the eG8 will create solutions – or more cynicism.

The New York Times presented the eG8 as an event where the “chaos of the Internet will meet a French sense of order. The crux of the matter is that France has pursued legislation and policies that revoke online access to citizens who share intellectual property, in a so-called “three strikes law,” and pursue technical blocks rather than going through courts.

Within Europe, there are also issues that divide, with Mr. Sarkozy pursuing a more active digital agenda than leaders of many other countries. His program has included a new law allowing the authorities to suspend Internet access to Internet users who ignore repeated warnings to stop sharing unlicensed music, movies or other copyrighted works online. Another new law permits the government to block access to Web sites that disseminate child pornography, rather than requiring law enforcement officials to pursue offenders through the courts.

While Britain has passed a law authorizing a similar crackdown on digital piracy, other E.U. members have been more circumspect. On the filtering of illegal content, German officials have expressed reservations about the French approach.

The New York Times acknowledges some of the disparities and congruences here, along with the reality of a fast-changing world where Europe it but one of the global hubs of influence. For instance, India, China and Indonesia, with hundreds of millions of online citizens, don’t have a clear seat at the eG8 table, so to speak. All of them have a stake in subsequent policy choices.

Many organizations concerned with human rights, liberties and civil society online have released a statement to the eG8 and G8 that advocates “expanding internet access for all, combating
digital censorship and surveillance, limiting online intermediary liability, and upholding
principles of net neutrality.”

In particular, a coalition of organizations – which includes the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Reporters without Borders – has highlighted concerns about a trend towards increasing “intermediary liability” and defending freedom of speech online. Part of France’s HADOPI law was declared unconstitutional in 2009 but a “3 strikes and you’re off the Net” reality still persists. In other words, while you’re in France, watch what you download.

For those unfamiliar with the issue, intermediary liability refers to holding Internet service providers or online media platforms liable for their users posting copyrighted or defamatory content. The ACTA treaty appears to increase such liability. United States Internet policies in this area over the past two decades have enabled many new businesses and services to flourish, as venture capitalist Fred Wilson articulated this week.

The coalition of civil society organizations urged eG8 participants “to follow the example of the Brazilian government’s Principles for the Governance and Use of the Internet, specifically #7 which reads: ‘All action taken against illicit activity on the network must be aimed at those directly responsible for such activities, and not at the means of access and transport, always upholding the fundamental principles of freedom, privacy and the respect for human rights.'”

Such measures and the issues that they are taken to address are not at all foreign to the halls of Washington and related Internet policy discussions, or the actions of the American federal government in recent months. That said, the United States federal government is not monolithic in its policies. It will be quite interesting, for instance, to see how the White House’sInternet freedom policy is defended by the State Department, particularly if compared or contrasted with, say, the actions of the Department of Homeland security or the Justice Department by other members of the G8.

Recent website takedowns by ICE, in concert with the White House IP and copyright office, highlight that governments on both sides of the Atlantic. are taking action to address the concerns of industry. The re-introduction of a new, tweaked “Protect IP” bill that would force search engines to remove sites that list infringing context from their indices is a legislative aspect of that common thread.

The White House has outlined an “international strategy for cyberspace” offers some insight into where American officials may stand in some respects, along with associated issues of identity, privacy and security.

As the eG8 forum looms, it’s unclear how much of the event will be an opportunity for president Sarkozy to stake out France’s position on Internet policy, how much of the programme will offer a forum for information exchange, or how much weight will be given to any resulting recommendation by policy makers. The Reuters analysis of this Web economy forum highlights these complexities. Realistically, two days and 800-odd participants may not drive much more than conversation. That said, in a time and place when the Internet – and being connected to it – are an increasingly important factor in the lives of billions of citizens, how it is architected, governed and extended matters.

Samantha Power: Transparency has gone global

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Innovations in democratic governance have been and likely always will be a global phenomenon. Samantha Power, senior director and special assistant for multilateral affairs and human rights at the White house, highlighted the ways in which platforms and initiatives for transparency in other countries are growing on the White House blog yesterday.

While “Sunshine Week” may be an American invention, the momentum for greater transparency and accountability in government is a global phenomenon. In countries around the world, governments and civil society groups are taking new and creative steps to ensure that government delivers for citizens and to strengthen democratic accountability.

From Kenya to Brazil to France to Australia, new laws and platforms are giving citizens new means to ask for, demand or simply create greater government transparency. As Power observed, open government is taking root in India, where the passage of India’s Right to Information Act and new digital platforms have the potential to change the dynamic between citizens and the immense bureaucracy.

Power listed a series of global transparency efforts, often empowered by technology, that serve as other useful examples of “innovations in democratic governance” on every continent

  • El Salvador and Liberia recently passed progressive freedom of information laws, joining more than 80 countries with legislation in place, up from only 13 in 1990;
  • A few weeks ago in Paris, six new countries from Europe, Africa, Central Asia, and the Middle East met the high standards of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI), empowering citizens with unprecedented information about payments made for the extraction of natural resources;
  • Brazil and South Africa are pioneering innovative tools to promote budget transparency and foster citizen engagement in budget decision-making, along with tens of other countries that are making budget proposals and processes open to public input and scrutiny;
  • Civil society groups are developing mechanisms to enable citizens to keep track of what happens in legislatures and parliaments, including impressive web portals such as votainteligente.cl in Chile and mzalendo.com in Kenya; and
  • Experiments in citizen engagement in Tanzania, Indonesia, and the Philippines, are demonstrating that citizen efforts to monitor the disbursement of government funds for education, health, and other basic services, actually decrease the likelihood of corruption and drive better performance in service delivery.

There’s a long road ahead for open government here in the United States. While improving collaboration and transparency through open government will continue to be difficult nuts to crack, it looks like “Uncle Sam” could stand to learn a thing or two from the efforts and successes of other countries on transparency. Addressing FOIA reform and better mobile access to information are two places to start.

For more on how open government can have a global impact, click on over to this exclusive interview with Samantha Power on national security, transparency and open government.