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ForewordIn the space of just a few years, digital commons have become one of the preferred ways for public players to develop shared digital solutions, whether between public players or within a community of heterogeneous players. While public-sector involvement in the development and maintenance of these digital commons can take a number of forms, it often consists in granting public aid to the structure supporting the digital commons. However, such support from the public sector must comply with national and European regulations on public procurement and the granting of public aid. These regulations do not take into account the particular characteristics of Open Source (shared and dispersed management of intellectual property rights) and the digital commons (a community involved in the governance and ongoing evolution of the project).This post is part of a series of reflections and tools designed to secure the use and development of digital commons in the context of public procurement contracts. Its aim is to develop a way of thinking that secures public support for digital commons in the light of European regulations on the granting of public aid in the context of public service missions. As the concepts involved are numerous and complex, the aim is both to clarify the underlying issues and to draw on real-life situations to articulate these diverse situations. The digital commons are generally defined in terms of a number of agreed-upon characteristics, based on an analysis renewed by Elinor Ostrom in work that won her the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2009. Briefly, a digital commons can be defined as a resource produced and maintained collectively by a community of heterogeneous actors, and governed according to rules that ensure its collective and shared character. The digital commons are increasingly being mobilized by public players as part of their public service mission, in various forms, both in France and in Europe. This model is very much in evidence in the field of software, particularly when end-users have a particular interest in having these resources supported by a wider community that defines their governance. Joint organization and production allows us to think in terms of pooling resources, giving all stakeholders greater influence in the evolution of the resource, and facilitating the consideration of systemic issues. These include collective issues such as maintenance (and funding for maintainers), digital sovereignty, digital resilience and, more generally, sustainable digital technology. France is particularly advanced on these subjects due to the obligation today placed on any player, be it private or public, to publish by default in Open Data (and therefore in Open Source when it comes to software) all documents produced or received as part of public service missions. In France, the legal framework was laid down by the 2016 Law for a Digital Republic, reinforced in 2018 by the State's Open Source Software Contribution Policy, which provides it with a technical framework reinforcing this practice within the Administration. Making it possible to reconcile the legal, political and strategic challenges of the digital world, the use of digital commons is thus strongly encouraged by public players in order to ensure a shared benefit from the resources thus produced and maintained and to avoid any distorting effect on competition that could result from the capture of open resources by certain players only.Numerous initiatives are currently being taken in this direction, notably by the Mission "Logiciels Libres et Communes Numériques" at central government level, and by ANCT's Digital Society Program at local level. In the same spirit, some public-sector mutualization structures have made Open Source an approach in principle, to enable mutualization and co-financing by their members. This is notably the case for initiatives led by theAssociation des développeurs et utilisateurs de Logiciels Libres pour les administrations et les collectivités territoriales (ADULLACT), or players such as the Opérateurs Publics de Services Numériques (OPSN), which brings together a growing number of local authorities. The digital commons, like Free Software, now occupy an important place in the information systems landscape in both the private and public sectors. Fostering the emergence of the digital commons thus helps to create an environment conducive to competition and innovation, with the beneficial consequences this can have on prices, well-being and economic growth on a French, European and international scale.What's more, the participation of public players in the financing, design and governance of such commons helps maintain the presence of a genuine general interest within the community.This is one of the reasons for the genuine interest in, and strong political support for, or even growing funding of projects through "calls for commons" or special funding for "common goods". These types of funding fall into the category of public aid, the legality of which must be analyzed. Whatever the project or context, the granting of public aid, regardless of the contracting authority or recipient, must comply with European regulations on state aid. The granting of public aid by a State or one of its operators, whoever the recipient (public or private), is governed by Article 107§1 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU). This stipulates that State aid is prohibited when it meets four criteria:Aid is granted by the State using public resources. This may involve resources granted directly by the State, indirectly by bodies linked to the State, or by local authorities. The case of aid granted by state-owned enterprises has undergone a major jurisprudential evolution, to the point where it is presumed that any financial intervention by a public entity for the benefit of third parties constitutes aid.This aid gives a company a selective advantage. A company is defined here in the European sense of the term, which includes public-sector players.It distorts competition within a Member State or within the European Union. This distortion may be actual or potential.It affects or is likely to affect trade between Member States. Aid is considered likely to affect competition if it is not aimed at a "purely local" activity. Until 2015, in the European Commission's approach, the last two criteria were presumed; and the meeting of the first two made it possible to retain the qualification of State aid. Since 7 decisions were taken in 2016, the Commission has considered that proof of an effect on trade is necessary to qualify as state aid.While the first two elements are easy to characterize, the next two require more in-depth study, especially when the public aid in question is granted for a digital common project. Public support for digital commons and distortion of competitionThe issue here is to ensure that by granting public aid to a digital commons, the public player does not undermine the principle of free and undistorted competition.The development of a digital commons, thanks to community governance and rules that ensure a balanced relationship between all stakeholders, strengthens trust and encourages the involvement of all, limiting the potential for re-appropriation by a single stakeholder. In this scenario, all holders of intellectual property rights grant their rights free of charge for the entire world, for the entire duration of the rights, for all uses and on all types of media.This license, known as the "Free License" (or "Open Source License"), is backed up by a series of material resources designed to encourage collaboration by guaranteeing that anyone can access, modify and distribute the resource at any time, including in a commercial context. Such governance can be provided specifically or by relying on third-party tools and organizations. In this sense, the Fabriques (for mobility, logistics and energy) offer a guarantee of long-term project openness, by providing and ensuring compliance with a set of legal and governance rules¹.In this context, fostering the emergence of digital commons helps to create an environment conducive to competition and innovation in public procurement, with the beneficial consequences this can have on prices, well-being and economic growth. The compatibility between the development of digital commons and respect for free and undistorted competition is also reinforced by case law concerning Free Software. Over the last few decades, a number of court decisions have ruled that a community formed around Free Software (and therefore a digital commons) does not constitute an agreement (even between private players)². What's more, the judges' reasoning is transposable to the digital commons: it is possible to stipulate in law that Free and Open Source Software will be favored by public purchasers³, as long as such a choice is technologically neutral on the one hand, and doesnot favor one or more players in particular on the other.Thus, from a public procurement point of view, a public purchaser who wishes to impose a digital common (whether named or not) as part of the performance of a service contract is not in breach of the principle of non-discrimination that applies to him. This analysis was set out in France by a Conseil d'Etat decision in 2011, detailed in a dedicated post on "public procurement and digital commons". Indeed, the Free License associated with such a project authorizes the direct or indirect commercialization of the resource by all. In so doing, it ensures an absence of discrimination which, combined with inclusive governance within the digital commons, enables all players to benefit from the efforts already made.The 2011 decision seems applicable to the digital commons, establishing that the requirement to use Free Software as part of a public procurement contract can neither be considered as having the effect of favoring the company that participated in its design, nor as having the effect of eliminating competing companies. Indeed, competing companies are perfectly capable of responding on the basis of a free resource, provided they have the skills to understand and adapt the latter, made freely accessible, modifiable and distributable by all thanks to the associated Free License.¹ Such governance by an external player can be an additional guarantee of trust, but it shouldn't be the only way out, and many Open Source communities govern themselves perfectly well.²See, for example, Wallace v International Business Machines Corp, United States Court of Appeals, 7th Circuit, November 9, 2006, no. 06-2454.³In Italy, see the Italian Constitutional Council, March 23, 2010, 122/2010. Public support for digital commons and allocation of trade between member statesInitially, distortion of competition and effect on trade between Member States were presumed when State aid granted through public resources conferred a selective advantage on a company.In April 2016, the European Commission reversed its decision-making practice, taking seven decisions declaring that public aid could not be classified as State aid because it did not affect trade between Member States. The Communication on the concept of State aid of July 19, 2016 acknowledges this change and reverses the burden of proof: theeffect on trade between Member States must be proven, it cannot be presumed. Thus, the classification of public aid as State aid within the meaning of Article 107§1 TFEU, and therefore the establishment of its illegality, presupposes proof of an effect on trade between Member States.The European Commission has not yet had to deal with any disputes concerning the granting of public aid for the development and maintenance of a digital commons, or even Free Software. However, an analysis of the seven founding rulings of its reversal of decision-making practice¹through the prism of the digital commons and Free Software may enable us to anticipate the Commission's position in this area. In these seven rulings, the Commission proposes a set of criteria for determining that an activity does not affect trade between Member States, including " the specific nature of the activity, the number of customers from other Member States and the absence of international promotion".More specifically, in decision no. SA. 45 512 of August 1, 2016, the Commission found that the low probability that the activity supported would have a significant impact on international operators in the market in which it was taking place meant that trade between Member States would not be affected, and that the public aid granted to it therefore did not constitute State aid. Financing granted to an activity whose development does not affect international operators, attract international customers or prevent the establishment of international competitors does not therefore constitute state aid.The openness and inclusivity inherent in the digital commons benefit all operators, regardless of their location or activity. They allow us to assert that support for the digital commons on the scale of a territory, a region or even a country is likely to be equally beneficial to any player established in another country. On the contrary, the legal and technical organization of access to the resource, and the organization of inclusive governance within the project are all guarantees that any player is likely to benefit from this approach. It's quite clear that the thinking behind public procurement can be transposed to a large extent to public subsidies. This makes it possible to validate the legality of granting public aid to a public or private player who has organized the governance of its digital commons project in such a way as not to discriminate against any player wishing to use or even contribute to the said project. What's more, case law on State aid seems to support this idea, and to specify what is expected of financed digital commons.In addition to the aforementioned issues of openness, and contrary to current practices in terms of public aid, certain best practices can be followed in terms of digital commons to ensure even greater inclusivity on a European scale: ensure that documentation on the commons and its governance is available in both French and English (or at least simply translatable), ensure that project governance allows for the integration of European players, encourage partnership approaches on a French and European scale to extend the benefits of the commons approach beyond the territories initially concerned.

"After several decades of questioning digital uses and innovation, social science research is far from having exhausted all avenues of inquiry, and many grey areas remain largely unexplored".At the crossroads of the various epistemologies and methodologies driving the social sciences, but also nourished by research in computer science, Terminal magazine has been taking a critical look at the evolution of digital uses since the early 1990s.The Groupement d'Intérêt Scientifique (GIS) M@rsouin supports Breton-based research teams working on the social, economic and political transformations linked to the evolution of digital uses.The result is a dossier in Terminal magazine, coordinated by Laurent Mell (PhD in information and communication sciences, CREAD-Marsouin, Institut Mines-Telecom), which brings together seven papers presented at the M@rsouin 2023 seminar, as well as two contributions sent directly to Terminal magazine."This issue is a reminder of the multi-faceted nature of digital research, which needs to be examined not as a separate field, but as an element that cuts across and interacts with social reality.The first part of the dossier explores, through a selection of different fields of application, the way in which digital evolutions induce social reconfigurations, whether at the level of representations, cultural practices or consumer behavior.Lucas Fritz (Université Gustave Eiffel) brings together critical disability studies and communication sciences by studying the socio-technical controversies surrounding autism and neurodiversity. He is particularly interested in the role of the Web (hyperlinks and search engines) and its accessibility in the construction of these controversies. The investigation is based on a quali/quantitative analysis of a Web cartography, informed by the practices of the sociology of controversies. Ultimately, this investigation questions the place of the social sciences (and their approach to the brain) within these controversies.Annick Tamaro, Kimberley Girardon, Morgane Innocent and Nicolas Decourcelle (Université de Bretagne Occidentale) explore consumer attitudes to 3D food printing. This study highlights a limited knowledge of this technical device, as well as a limited level of acceptability by consumers of dishes prepared with the help of this technology. The researchers identify several barriers to acceptance, expressed in terms of costs: practical, cognitive, financial, societal, cultural, social and quality. And, as a disruptive innovation, 3D food printing has a strongly bivalent character and a divisive imaginary.Marie-Laure Bernon (Université d'Orléans) and Olivier Trédan (IUT de Lannion) examine the way in which the Internet is associated with and interwoven into ordinary sewing practices. Articulating an approach based on social worlds with a pragmatics of taste, the authors identify an evolution in the relationship to sewing through the integration of digital practices in the processes of sourcing, learning and valuing creations. In the course of a seamstress's career, the Internet is shaking up ways of being and doing, continually rediscussing the taste for sewing. The Web is helping to reshape the world of sewing, offering new ways of transmitting theoretical and procedural knowledge, as well as new ways of learning.The second part looks at the relationships between the various forms of educational inequality and digital disparities, in the light of recent research into digital distance and the associated imaginaries.Jérôme Clerget (Université Rennes 2 Cread-GIS Marsouin), Pascal Plantard (Université Rennes 2 Cread - co-director of GIS M@rsouin) and Marianne Bléhaut (Director of the Data and Economy division at Credoc) address the issue of digital inequalities and, more specifically, the identification of so-called "digitally remote" individuals. The speakers question the much-quoted figure of "13 million" digital outsiders, and the very process of quantifying this social phenomenon. After highlighting the fundamentally multi-dimensional nature of the phenomenon and showing the diversity of approaches aimed at accounting for it, the authors propose a representation of remoteness in the form of a "halo" based on the study of the relative and subjective "feeling of ease" of the individuals surveyed, before highlighting the interest of identifying in detail the people concerned to better demonstrate the centrality of cultural and social factors.Find out more: France's digital society: defining and measuring digital distanceCarine Aillerie, Théo Martineaud, Mélina Solari-Landa Landa (Université de Poitiers), Veronica Castillo Pérez, Angela Figueroa Iberico and Augusta Valle Taiman (Pontifical Catholic University of Peru, Lima) examine the information practices of primary school teachers (CM1-CM2), taking into account the pedagogical positions they adopt with regard to Media and Information Education (MIE). While teachers' information practices respond to different needs (preparation of teaching content, development of personal and professional experience), the concrete expression of EMI in elementary school takes equally different forms (one-off activities, outside school time, structured around teachers' representations).Matthieu Serreau (Université Rennes 2 CREAD) and Pascal Plantard analyze the psychodynamic, individual and collective transformations of educational digital practices during Covid-19-related confinement. Based on exchanges between students and teachers, the authors show that the mobilization of digital technologies in a pandemic educational context is structured above all on unstable and evolving representations of the digital. The upheaval of certain educational norms has shaken many teachers and students (conflict of legitimacy, digital capital put to the test, etc.). The revelation of educational digital disparities reinforces the need for support in developing digital cultures, over and above simple technical training in educational tools.The third part presents three texts " where digital technology is put to the test of heritage, proposing to discuss the renegotiations engaged in the professional landscape of archivists, the dynamics created by the use of digital technology in exhibitions on slavery, but also the audiences mobilized by online exhibitions".Maëlle Moalic-Minnaert (Université de Caen Normandie) examines the effects of digital technology on archivists' autonomy. She focuses on the ways in which archivists' individual autonomy has been reconfigured in their day-to-day work, as well as in their professional stance towards IT specialists. On the one hand, within the professional group, archivists negotiate their relationship with digital technology individually, but also heterogeneously according to their socio-professional position. On the other, the "professionalism" of the archival profession is being renegotiated as work procedures are overhauled in line with the digital era.Caroline Creton and Manuelle Aquilina (Université catholique de l'Ouest) examine the use of digital cultural mediation devices in exhibitions on slavery. The authors show that, despite the complexity of exhibitions on this subject, digital technology is mobilized to help understand the reality of the slave system and its current consequences. Their analysis, based on interviews with professionals and visitors, reveals that these digital devices " play a crucial role in the experience of audiences, speaking to their feelings and shaking up their perceptions ".Marie-Laure Bernon (Université d'Orléans) examines museum audiences on the Internet, their diversity and their motivations for visiting these digital spaces. She finds that visiting exhibitions online is mainly practiced by older, affluent people, combining utilitarian use of the Internet with museum expertise linked to their level of education and heritage culture. This minority of art museum enthusiasts appropriates the online exhibition as a complementary art mediation device, and also according to a logic of distinction from other forms of museum experience. In addition, this research focuses on the digital practices of the working classes, who are less familiar with museums and have a difficult relationship with the written word. For them, an online visit takes on an educational form, akin to browsing a "cultured Wikipedia". File summaryLaurent Mell: Interrogating the digital from every angle. Between methodological flexibility and epistemological rigorLucas Fritz: Our brains on the Web: between neuroreductionism and neurodiversityAnnick Tamaro, Kimberley Girardon, Morgane Innocent and Nicolas Decourcelle: Consumer acceptability of 3D food printing.Marie-Laure Bernon and Olivier Trédan: Le goût de coudre à l'heure d'Internet: reconfigurations numériques des mondes de la coutureJérôme Clerget, Pascal Plantard and Marianne Bléhaut: Pour en finir avec les " 13 millions " ? The challenge of accounting for digital remotenessCarine Aillerie, Théo Martineaud, Mélina Solari-Landa Landa, Veronica Castillo Pérez, Angela Figueroa Iberico and Augusta Valle Taiman: Teachers' everyday information practices and media and information literacy in elementary school in France.Matthieu Serreau and Pascal Plantard: Le numérique comme fait social total: évolution des pratiques numériques éducatives pendant les confinementsMaëlle Moalic-Minnaert: Archivists and the digital age: rebuilding autonomy?Caroline Creton and Manuelle Aquilina: Contributions of digital cultural mediation devices for exhibiting and receiving the history of triangular tradeMarie-Laure Bernon: Museum audiences on the Internet: the test of social divides

ForewordThe level of carbon emissions attributed to the use of digital technologies is fairly well known. These emissions represent around 2.5% of France's carbon footprint. By 2030, in a trend scenario, they should reach 25 MtCO2e, up 45% on 2020, and electricity consumption due to the use of this equipment should rise to 54 TWh, up 5%.But what do we know, conversely, about the contribution of digital technology to decarbonization trajectories, France Stratégie asked. "The question is complex and has not yet received a comprehensive answer.France Stratégie set out to explore the results of economic literature to quantify the decarbonization potential of four selected use cases in the key fields of energy and transport: smart grids, smart homes, telecommuting and car-sharing.Emissions reduction potentials take into account potential rebound effects as well as the footprint of the digital solution itself. For intelligent home management, telecommuting and car-sharing, several scenarios are studied, based on different assumptions that vary the efficiency gains as well as the magnitude of rebound effects. The results have been estimated on the basis of the current French energy mix. Smart grids: modest and uncertain gains for the French gridWhether it's for electricity transmission or distribution, so-called "smart" solutions can be deployed at all levels of an electrical network. These solutions collect and analyze data, promote the circulation of information between suppliers and consumers, and enable real-time adjustment of the flow of electricity: between 2% and 10% of European household energy consumption could be saved in this way.Smartification " ensures the balancing and flexibility of networks: thanks to smart grids, energy storage devices and "load shedding capacities" - in other words, the quantities of energy that can be punctually withdrawn from the national electricity grid to relieve it of peak consumption - can be controlled as closely as possible. We can also manage and support a growing share of electricity from renewable sources or decentralized systems, whether self-generation or "prosumers" (a consumer who has certain characteristics that bring him or her closer to the figure of a producer).By facilitating network monitoring, smart grids improve maintenance and incident management: outage times in the event of a breakdown are reduced, and malfunctions likely to increase consumption are quickly detected. These intelligent systems also help to reduce network operating costs and reduce the need for technical teams to travel: for example, the number of interventions by Enedis teams has fallen by more than 70% since the installation of Linky meters. The gains achieved could even help to reduce the number of back-up infrastructures needed, and redirect certain investments towards greater decarbonization of the network. Part of the gains expected from smart grids are linked to smart meters (Linky in France).In 2017, power grid operator RTE provided an initial estimate of the impact of smart grids on the French power grid. Four solutions were scrutinized: storage, active management of residential demand via smart meters and "boxes", active management of industrial and tertiary demand, and control of wind generation.In the context of 2017, RTE estimated that the deployment of all smart grid solutions would enable a net gain in emissions of around 0.8 MtCO2/year by 2030, including the life cycle of the equipment deployed, i.e. around 3% of the French power system's annual emissions. More than two-thirds of these benefits would come from storage (batteries and STEP), " the inclusion of which in the scope of digital solutions may be debatable, however, due to the various technical devices mobilized"."However, concludes RTE, " the use of digital technology could be more promising for certain new uses of electricity that could contribute to flexibility ". In particular, RTE mentioned the intelligent control of battery recharging for electric vehicles. Intelligent home management: gains that depend on the deployment contextCO2 emissions linked to heating primary residences in mainland France amounted to 45 million tonnes in 2021, i.e. 1.5 tCO2 per dwelling, including indirect emissions from electric and district heating.Today, digital solutions are available to manage systems and reduce energy consumption in the home. These intelligent home management systems (Home Energy Management Systems or HEMS) reduce energy consumption for all equipment in the home. But it's when it comes to managing room temperature (heating in particular) that these solutions offer the most interesting benefits.France Stratégie has selected several scenarios that take into account the solution's energy efficiency gains, the rebound effects that could reduce the solution's gains by 25%, 50% or 75%, and the emissions associated with implementing the solution.In the optimistic scenario, intelligent home management would reduce energy consumption by 20 TWh and save 3.1 MtCO2e per year for all homes in mainland France. On the other hand, it would increase energy consumption by 2 TWh and emissions by 0.1 MtCO2e in the pessimistic scenario. " Indeed, under unfavorable assumptions, energy efficiency gains after rebound effects could be insufficient to offset the emissions linked to the implementation of the solution itself". Telecommuting: a moderate contribution with significant rebound effectsTelecommuting is often seen as a way of reducing greenhouse gas emissions on a national or city scale.In France, according to ADEME, the emissions gains directly linked to the reduction in commuting for one day of telecommuting per week average 271 kgCO2e per year and per telecommuter. However, we need to take into account rebound effects, in particular the possible transfer to other types of commute, whether local or long-distance. " We also need to take into account the use of videoconferencing and the increase in energy consumption at home (linked to IT equipment and heating), as well as, conversely, the drop in consumption at the company".Taking all these effects into account, ADEME estimates that the annual gains associated with one day's telecommuting would be reduced to 181 kgCO2e in the absence of flex office. On the other hand, the gains could be greater than the direct effect of reducing commuting if flex office is used: this organization of space without dedicated offices reduces the surface area used and therefore energy consumption, heating and building maintenance operations. Generally speaking, estimating rebound effects remains uncertain and tricky.To arrive at an order of magnitude for the effects of teleworking in France, France Stratégie considered the emissions gains of all employees working in a "teleworkable" job, i.e. the optimistic assumption of 34% of the 30 million employees in France teleworking on average one day a week.The three scenarios proposed by France Stratégie differ in the extent to which office space is optimized, and in the magnitude of the rebound effects observed. All three scenarios show a potential reduction in annual emissions, ranging from 1.8 to 4.1 MtCO2eq, or between 181 kgCO2eq and 413 kgCO2eq per teleworker."Over and above the high uncertainties surrounding it, such a figure highlights the fact that telecommuting alone will only make a moderate contribution to the necessary reduction in transport emissions, especially as the practice of telecommuting is tending to stabilize among employees after the sharp rise post-2019," concludes France Stratégie. Car-sharing platforms: relatively small gains and risks of reboundCarpooling (or ridesharing) enables several motorists to use a single private vehicle to make the same journey. The measurement of carbon gains from this practice depends on whether short-distance journeys (under 80 km) or long-distance journeys (over 80 km) are considered.In fact, the potential gains are greater on short journeys, which are a priori more numerous, since 74% of home-work journeys are made with private vehicles. However, it is estimated that only 3% of daily carpooling is done by private individuals. Self-driving is also common on business trips, 88% of which are made with the driver alone, over short distances.What's more, informal carpooling still far outweighs that organized by digital platforms (4% of 900,000 daily carpool trips).Based on average distances travelled of between 10 and 24 km, and rebound effects ranging from 25% to 77%, France Stratégie evaluates potential reductions of between 0.28 and 2.17 MtCO2eq: "These gains remain fairly small compared to the necessary reduction in transport emissions: as a reminder, in 2018, the road sector alone produced 120 MtCO₂éq of emissions"."It's very difficult to estimate the extent to which the digital platforms that are supposed to play a key role in these new forms of mobility will contribute to them, even though they are still marginal in carpooling practices today". In conclusion"Although not negligible, the potential of these digital solutions seems modest overall, given the current level of emissions in their sector of application," concludes France Stratégie. "Often limited by rebound effects, the expected energy savings and emissions reductions remain largely hypothetical, generally requiring changes in user behavior. For example, if 10 million working people teleworked one day a week, this could save between 1 and 4 MtCO2 per year, depending on their behavior and the way their workspaces are organized. In an optimistic scenario, smart homes could reduce energy consumption by 20 TWh and emissions by 4 MtCO2, but under less favorable assumptions, they could lead to a net increase in these two quantities (+2 TWh and +0.1 MtCO2), given the footprint of the solution itself"."The useful and necessary promotion of solutions that can contribute to the ecological transition must not overshadow the major challenge of controlling the environmental impact of digital uses as a whole. Digital technology will only be able to contribute to decarbonization if its use is consistent with other decarbonization actions and changes in lifestyles, thus avoiding rebound effects". ".

ForewordAs part of its European Data Strategy, the European Union is promoting new ways of managing personal and non-personal data that are closer to the logic of the digital commons.In particular, the Data Governance Act (DGA) introduces two new data-sharing services: data altruistic organizations (DAOs) aimed at the voluntary sharing of data for public interest purposes, and data intermediation service providers (DISPs) that facilitate commercial relationships around data sharing. The latter can take the form of data cooperatives ensuring democratic governance and economic valuation of data, while preserving the rights of their members.At the same time, the European Commission is supporting the development of data spaces, technical and organizational infrastructures for the secure pooling of data between players in the same sector, with fair access rules and well-defined governance.These innovations, both legislative and technical, are now up for grabs by digital commons owners. IntroductionThe European Data Strategy, launched in 2020 by the European Commission, is a response to a two-fold observation. On the one hand, there is the growing production within the Union of data that is subject to the phenomenon of concentration, particularly within the very large online platforms. Secondly, European citizens are becoming increasingly aware of the commercial uses made of their data, whether they know it or not.The European Data Strategy takes account of these two issues in the creation of a "single data market" facilitating the circulation of as much data as possible, including personal data. Such circulation can only take place if it takes place within a framework that ensures a high level of protection for the holders of rights to this data - both natural and legal persons. It must also be a vector of trust and transparency between all stakeholders.Without explicitly referring to the digital commons, the European Data Strategy (and its accompanying texts) promotes a number of legislative and technical innovations for the concerted, organized production and dissemination of data. Although there is no unanimous definition of the digital commons, they can be described as "resources produced and/or maintained collectively by a community of heterogeneous actors, and governed by rules that ensure their collective and shared character"..A parallel can therefore be drawn between this definition of the digital commons and the legislative and technical innovations promoted under the European Data Strategy. Until now, European regulations on data have been aimed either at ensuring openness(Public Service Information (PSI) 2) or protection(RGPD). With the European Data Strategy, the legislator is introducing an additional level of finesse into data management, leading to a reconciliation of openness and protection. The European Data Strategy includes a number of sector-specific regulations on data sharing, first and foremost theAI Act. Alongside these texts, the Data Act extends the scope of shareable data, specifying which data held by both public and private players can be shared and reused, even though they are subject to special protection¹. In addition, the text stipulates that exclusivity may be granted on shared data, up to a limit of one year, if re-use of the data enables the provision of a service or product of general interest that could not be obtained without this exclusivity. This new possibility could be exploited by a public player wishing to support the development of a digital commons, by conferring a clear advantage on the latter. Indeed, the Open Data policy pursued in France and at European level has demonstrated the importance of data sharing in the development of digital projects, and in particular digital commons. Lastly, the Data Act provides for the development of interoperability standards for data and its reuse across business sectors.This extension of shareable data has made it necessary to put in place a framework that fosters transparency and trust between the holders and re-users of this data, and which can incidentally be mobilized to serve the development of digital commons. ¹ "Personal data, as well as data protected by commercial confidentiality, statistical secrecy or third-party intellectual property rights, may be shared and reused, subject to compliance with the Data Act and other applicable legislation". The Data Governance Act (DGA ) provides for the implementation of data-sharing services, with the aim of promoting data reuse while strengthening the confidence of data subjects and data holders. To ensure this dual objective, it seems appropriate to consider, among other possibilities, the creation of digital commons around data.On the one hand, joint management of such data - whether personal or not - would strengthen data protection by pooling the necessary resources. On the other hand, these data commons could, on the basis of other provisions of the legislative package on digital services, be made available to free projects or digital commons, and more broadly to any project pursuing a goal of general interest.Support for the creation and development of digital commons is made possible by two innovations introduced by the DGA: data intermediation services and altruistic data organizations. Data-altruistic organizationsData altruistic organizations (DAOs), instituted by the DGA, are intended to provide legal support for data altruism, defined by the same regulation as:"Voluntary sharing of personal or non-personal data] without requesting or receiving compensation [...] for purposes of general interest".In order to develop digital comuns, it would be possible to mobilize the OAD concept in two ways. On the one hand, such organizations would be interesting to mobilize to feed digital commons pursuing a goal of general interest, all the more so :that there are mature commons in France, whether digital or not, on the subjects cited as examples by the DGA: the winning commons from ADEME's Call for Commons (fight against climate change); the Fabrique des mobilités, etc.that it is up to national law to define the general interest objectives likely to be pursued by the projects for which data is made available in this way. On the other hand, ADOs could constitute the legal structure to be mobilized within the framework of the creation of data commons facilitating the development of other projects pursuing a goal of general interest. Public encouragement and support for their development would thus act as a catalyst for digital commons projects pursuing such general interest objectives. In addition, the DGA lays down several sets of rules to be respected by DABs to ensure the transparency of the sector and the preservation of the rights and interests of data subjects and data holders with regard to their data. The regulation also provides for this framework to be reinforced by the Commission, by means of delegated acts, over the coming years.However, the corollary of altruism is the impossibility of considering the economic sustainability of the digital commons. The only possible solution is to collect subsidies from re-user projects, to offset the costs of making their data available.The value of ADOs for the development of digital commons lies essentially in the altruistic sharing of data that they will facilitate. When it comes to the legal structuring of data commons, promoters wishing to develop an economic model to ensure their sustainability will turn instead to the second data-sharing service introduced by the DGA: data intermediation service providers. Data intermediation servicesThe DGA defines a data intermediation service provider (DISP) as providing" a service that aims to establish commercial relationships for the purpose of data sharing between an unspecified number of data subjects and data holders, on the one hand, and data users, on the other hand, by technical, legal or other means, including for the purpose of exercising the rights of data subjects with respect to personal data ".The DGA stipulates that these PSIDs must use data formats that promote interoperability between services.PSIDs fall into two categories:data brokersintermediation services between data holders and potential users, and between data subjects seeking to make their data available and potential users;data cooperative serviceswhich could form the basis of a data commons. Data cooperatives are defined by the DGA as"intermediation service providers whose purpose is to help their members (data subjects, sole traders or SMEs) exercise their rights with regard to certain data, to conduct exchanges on the purposes and conditions of their processing in the interests of their members, and to negotiate the terms and conditions of data processing on behalf of its members".Such actors would thus facilitate the sharing of data within them, according to a democratic governance defined by their members, in line with the principles and values of the digital commons. Moreover, data cooperatives do not constitute a new legal structure, but rather a qualification that can be obtained on request by a pre-existing structure. As a result, data commons promoters will benefit from a proven legal and doctrinal framework, a factor of legal certainty.The great advantage of PSIDs over OADs lies in the fact that the former can develop a commercial activity based on data sharing. Such a commercial activity would ensure the maintenance and development of a digital commons structured in this way. It should also encourage the sharing of data for re-use in other digital commons projects, and more broadly in the general interest.So, while the aim of the "digital package" is not the promotion and development of digital commons, it is possible, in the great tradition of the free movement and digital commons, to mobilize this new regulation to that end. By mobilizing French cooperative law, data cooperatives should constitute a legal structure particularly suited to the collective production and maintenance of a resource by a community of heterogeneous actors, and governed by rules that ensure its collective and shared character. Data spaces: technical tools for building data poolsData spaces would be a vehicle for mobilizing new data regulations at the service of the digital commons.A data space can be defined, based on the work of the European Commission's Data Space Working Group, as a technical infrastructure and organizational framework enabling the pooling of data by players in the same sector of activity. Data spaces are thus promoted by the European Union, as part of its data policy, as a new way of sharing and reusing data not subject to the open data principle.The European Union's data policy defines data spaces as having the following essential characteristics:be open to the participation of all organizations and individuals ;a secure, privacy-protected infrastructure for pooling, accessing, sharing, processing and using data;propose a clear and practical structure with fair, transparent, proportionate and non-discriminatory access rules, based on well-defined and reliable data governance mechanisms;respect EU rules and values, in particular personal data and consumer protection, as well as competition law;allow data holders to grant access to certain personal or non-personal or non-personal data;give data holders the means to make their data available for reuse, free of charge or in exchange for compensation. The European Union's objective in designing and promoting such tools is to facilitate as much as possible the free circulation of data between players in the same sector, while ensuring a high level of control over these data by their holders.As far as the digital commons are concerned, it seems possible to create new ways of sharing data between project developers, by combining the essential features of data spaces with the new data-sharing services introduced by the DGA, and operationalized through legal structures stemming from the social economy (cooperatives and mutuals).This would lead to the creation of secure data spaces, subject to democratic governance that includes all stakeholders in the data cycle, from holders to re-users, both natural and legal persons. The European Data Strategy, the various texts that accompany it and the innovations they bring with them are still in their infancy. It will therefore be interesting for digital commons developers to follow the first concrete applications, in order to draw inspiration from, if not mobilize, these new tools for structuring the digital commons.Indeed, altruistic data organizations provide a framework for pooling data in the general interest, in a way that is transparent and respectful of stakeholders' rights. On the other hand, data intermediation services are a tool enabling the economic valorization of a digital resource within a framework of democratic governance that includes all stakeholders.Lastly, data spaces provide the tools to support the two previous concepts, by specifying a framework to guarantee the values of openness, security and transparency governing the sharing of data. They are also an extension of data portals. Data portals enable data to be shared, but not pooled. Each contributor retains ownership of the data they contribute, and defines the terms and conditions of access. Common data spaces add a collaborative dimension to data sharing, particularly with regard to the governance of shared data.In this way, data spaces provide a legally recognized framework that can serve as a legal basis for structuring data commons, and more broadly, digital commons. Glossary :DGA: Data Governance ActOAD: altruistic data organizationsPSID: data intermediation service providerTo find out more :Second staff working document on data spacesCommon European data spacesEuropean data strategy

At a time when households are being asked to make efforts to control their environmental impact, a recent CREDOC study shows that the higher the standard of living, the greater the carbon footprint of digital equipment. Wealthier households in particular are more equipped with terminals (computers, tablets, etc.) than modest households. This research also shows that the carbon footprint peaks among 18-24 year-olds, who have more recent and diverse equipment than their elders.The latest editions of the Digital Barometer show that the French remain insufficiently informed about the most effective ways of limiting the environmental impact of their digital practices. A footprint calculation that combines two frames of referenceThis study innovates by mobilizing two types of data: data from the 2023 Digital Barometer on digital equipment and usage, and data from the NegaOctet database, which examines the carbon impact of digital equipment by age group and standard of living.By combining data from these two repositories, it is possible to better understand which categories of the population generate the highest emissions.The carbon footprint of digital equipment takes into account the individual equipment rate, the duration of ownership of the various devices and the type of equipment held. For example, the manufacture of a TV set emits on average 4.5 times more CO2 than that of a smartphone.Estimating the carbon footprint of digital technology takes into account the number of devices available per person in the household (TV, desktop or laptop computer, tablet, smartphone, games console), the length of time the devices are owned and the carbon footprint of the various devices.The overall index obtained reveals categorical differences in the carbon impact of digital equipment. The higher the household standard of living, the greater the carbon footprint of digital equipmentThis footprint is estimated at 118 kg CO2e per year for low-income earners, and 138 kg CO2e for high-income earners.These differences are mainly due to the fact that the equipment rate increases with income level, since the length of time equipment is owned is comparable from one income bracket to the next.Low incomes are characterized by a lower equipment rate per individual, whatever the terminal: TV, computer, tablet or cell phone.High-income earners, meanwhile, are more equipped with computers and tablets than the rest of the population, equipment that has a higher carbon impact.Annual carbon footprint peaks among young peopleThe calculated index is significantly higher for 18-24 year-olds than for the rest of the population.The 18-24 age group has both a higher per capita equipment rate for all the equipment considered, and shorter appliance ownership times. This specificity could be at least partly linked to the life cycle: the 18-24 age bracket corresponds for many to the access to residential autonomy, a period that often rhymes with home equipment, and would explain why young people own more recent appliances.On the other hand, there is little difference between all age groups. The 25-39 age group, for example, has a footprint very close to that of the over-60s.While equipment has, on average, a larger carbon footprint than usage, the intensity of certain uses can compete with the weight of equipment in an individual's total carbon footprint. " The more intensive use of digital technology by young people could significantly increase the digital footprint of young people", observe the CREDOC authors, who mention in particular the more intensive use of smartphones among 18-24 year-olds, video-on-demand services and video viewing.Actions to reduce the impact of digital use are better respected by older peopleIn their forward-looking study on the environmental assessment of digital technology, ADEME and Arcep put forward three recommendations in 2023 to reduce the impact of household uses: extend their lifespan, limit the number of devices and make the purchase of reconditioned equipment more widespread.Extending their lifespan: 66% of French people try to increase the lifespan of their equipment, by taking care of it, having it repaired, etc. This is the second most common action of the eleven proposed. This is the second most common gesture among the eleven proposed. However, this practice is not in the majority among 18-24 year-olds (44%) and is less widespread than average among 25-39 year-olds (58%). Older people are more likely to adopt this gesture (72% over the age of 40).Limiting the number of items of equipment is observed by 49% of French people. Once again, this practice increases with age: only a third of 18-24 year-olds do so, versus 61% of those aged 70 and over. "It seems that this propensity is not just declarative: younger people have a greater variety of equipment at their disposal. However, this data needs to be qualified: older people benefit less from the pooling of equipment, which does not go in the direction of limiting their number. For example, the over-70s own, on average, just over one television per person, compared with 0.6 for the under-25s.Reconditioning: only 28% of Internet users say they buy reconditioned digital terminals as much as possible. The younger the Internet users, the more they say they adopt this practice, from 35% of 12 to 17 year-olds to 19% of those aged 70 and over. " A lesser adherence to these modes of consumption within the older generations, but also the lower prices of these reconditioned terminals could partly explain these differences," comments CREDOC."The French are gradually becoming aware of the environmental impact of digital technology," concludes CREDOC.However, only 52% of French people consider themselves sufficiently informed, while 45% deplore a lack of information. A large majority, however, show a real desire to reduce the impact of their practices, in particular by acting on the durability of their equipment (80%) and, to a lesser extent, by moderating their digital uses (69%).

ForewordAccording to the Baromètre du numérique 2024, published on March 17, 2025, the use of artificial intelligence (AI) tools has risen sharply in one year among the French population: 33% of French people have already used them in 2024, compared with 20% in 2023. This strong progression is accompanied by a high level of mistrust of these artificial intelligence tools for the majority of the population, although this mistrust is declining as personal use of these tools increases. Moreover, AI use is influenced by gender and age.Growing use of AIUses of artificial intelligence in the context of private life dominate (26%, +10 points in one year), slightly outstripping those linked to professional life (22%, also +10 points over the same period). Gender and age are factors that influence the use of AI.Men use artificial intelligence tools more than women, both in their private and professional lives.By 2024, 25% of men will be using them professionally, compared with 20% of women, and 30% of men will be using them in their private lives, compared with 22% of women.This gender gap remains similar to that observed in 2023. To shed some light on these findings, the authors of the survey mention two recent studies (see below) which indicate that, even when working in the same jobs, men are more likely to turn to artificial intelligence and ChatGPT than women. " According to these studies, women's lack of self-confidence could be partly responsible for this situation: women who don't use artificial intelligence more often than men indicate their need for training to use this new technology." 69% of 18-24 year-olds have already used AIAs in 2023, 18-24 year-olds are the age group that most frequently uses artificial intelligence tools in their professional lives or as part of their studies. Thus, 69% of them have already used AI in this context, compared with 41% of 25-39 year-olds. What's more, 58% of 18-24 year-olds use AI in their private lives, compared to 41% of 25-39 year-olds.These generational gaps were already present in 2023, in similar proportions. The majority of French people do not trust artificial intelligence56% of French people have no confidence in artificial intelligence, with 21% expressing strong distrust. It should be noted that distrust of artificial intelligence decreases with personal use. Respondents who have already integrated artificial intelligence into their professional lives, studies or daily lives are more confident overall (74%) than those who have not yet used it (26%). "Without being able to determine with any certainty the direction of the correlation: have those most open to AI been more inclined to adopt it? Or is it the use of AI that reinforces confidence in this technology? " comment the survey's authors. More users, men tend to trust artificial intelligence more than women: 45% of men declare themselves confident, compared to 38% of women, a gap of 7 points. Moreover, distrust of artificial intelligence increases with age. Older people are more skeptical than younger ones: 70% of those aged 70 and over express distrust, compared with only 38% of 18-24 year-olds. AI is mostly perceived as a threat in the employment and artistic creation sectorsOpinions on the impact of AI on the environment and sustainable development remain divided, with no clear consensus (48% see it as a threat, 48% as an opportunity). Finally, in the field of education and training in 2024, AI is slightly more often perceived as an opportunity (50%), although a significant number of respondents (47%) still see it as a threat. In all the fields assessed, men are more likely than women to perceive artificial intelligence as an opportunity rather than a threat. This difference is particularly noticeable in the environment sector, where 53% of men see AI as an opportunity, compared to 43% of women. Similarly, men are more likely than women to see AI as an opportunity in education and training (55% of men versus 46% of women).Younger generations are clearly more optimistic than their elders about the impact of artificial intelligence. Young people are consistently among the respondents who most frequently perceive AI as an opportunity, across all fields.

ForewordContrary to popular belief, quantitative surveys and social science research confirm young people's interest in current affairs. Three recently published surveys paint a picture of young people's information practices in the age of digital platforms and social networks.The Youth Barometer sheds light on the effects of age, gender and qualifications on these information practices.According to the survey on the French and information carried out on behalf of Arcom (Autorité de régulation de la communication audiovisuelle et numérique), which looked at the information practices of teenagers, while the practices of 15-19 year-olds are "more distanced, less frequent and less expert than those of their elders, they do not seem less well informed than adults ".A survey carried out in Normandy among Première students to assess their relationship with "misinformation" and their practices in verifying information: focusing on vocational streams and the working classes, this survey confirms that information practices differ significantly according to social background.Laurence Courroy and Anne Cordier, both researchers in Information and Communication Sciences, have been working for several years to understand the information practices of young people. They question recurring prejudices about young people who are disconnected from current affairs, who abandon the press and traditional media to focus solely on content disseminated via social networks. 7 out of 10 young people regularly follow the newsThe Baromètre sur la jeunesse, a survey of 4,500 young people aged 15 to 30, conducted for the Direction de la jeunesse de l'éducation populaire et de la vie associative (DJEPVA) and the Institut national de la jeunesse et de l'éducation populaire (INJEP), explores the variety of news practices of young people aged 15 to 30 in 2024. How often do young people follow the news? What themes do they consult: sports, politics, social issues, news, culture and the arts? Why do they stay informed? Social networks, television, search engines, press... What sources do they use?Between the ages of 15 and 30, the majority of young people have kept up to date with the news several times a week or even every day over the past 12 months (this concerns 7 out of 10 young people aged 15 to 30), significantly less than their elders (9 out of 10 over 30s).Not all young people keep themselves informed with the same regularity. The importance attached to news during childhood or adolescence within the family has a lasting and clear influence on the frequency with which news is consulted. Daily news coverage rises sharply with age: between 15 and 17, nearly 3 in 10 young people say they read the news every day, while this is the case for 4 in 10 young adults (25-30).Education has a significant effect on the frequency with which news is followed. Young adults with higher education qualifications are more likely to keep up to date with the news on a daily basis: 48% among 25-30 year-olds, compared with 39% among 25-30 year-olds with a degree or less. "The correlation observed between diploma and frequency of news viewing could be partly the result of habits acquired during higher education, with certain training courses requiring assiduous media viewing. It could also be the result of socialization to the news, with the most highly educated being more represented among those who were socialized to the news during childhood or adolescence".Gendered interests. News, as perceived by 15-30 year-olds, covers a wide range of themes. Among the fourteen news topics on offer, young people say they are most often drawn to sport (45%) and news (39%), followed by national politics (35%), the environment and climate (34%) and international politics (33%). Young people's interests are, however, highly gendered. Sports information, followed by mechanics, cars and motorcycles, and science and technology are of greater interest to young men. For their part, young women are far more frequently interested than young men in news, followed by fashion and beauty, health and well-being, social issues (education, families, housing, justice...), celebrity life and celebrity topics.The practices of young adults (25-30) differ from those of teenagers (15-17). The former are interested in a wider range of subjects than the latter, as reflected in their interest in politics, the environment, social issues, the economy, science and technology or health. "Young people's interests broaden as they enter adulthood, partly because their tastes evolve, and partly because it is undoubtedly easier to decipher these subjects at a later age". Getting informed, above all, out of curiosity and to understand the worldThe " desire to learn things and understand the world around them" is is the primary motivation for 15-30 year-olds (64%) to follow the news, according to the Youth Barometer. For the over-30s, following the news is first and foremost a way of satisfying curiosity and learning, as well as a way of stimulating discussion with others. On the other hand, younger people perceive the news more as a form of entertainment or hobby than those over 30: "to have fun, to pass the time" is the third most important motivation for 15-30 year-olds (37%, versus 22% for those over 30), particularly among young men, the least educated and those still studying.While the over-30s prefer television to keep abreast of the news, social networks are the main source of information for half of 15-30 year-olds (53%). Among them, teenagers (15-17) and those interested in celebrity and celebrity-related topics, or cultural and environmental issues, are the most likely to use social networks for information, in descending order: Instagram, TikTok and specific YouTube video sites dedicated to decrypting the news."Following social networks does not prevent young people from taking a critical look at them". The majority of them consider that they "spread much more false information than other media (television, radio, press...)". In fact, in addition to social networks, young people use other complementary sources of information, such as television, specific websites and discussions with friends and family. In fact, it's "by comparing what several media say (television, radio, press, etc.)" that 4 out of 10 young people manage to form an opinion on a subject that is the subject of debate in society.Television continues to occupy an important place in young people's daily lives, including in their information practices. Young people interested in national and international politics are particularly keen on watching the news, while those following national politics and the economy get their information primarily from all-news channels.Search engines and news portals are used more by young people seeking information on a wider range of subjects: science and technology, mechanics, cars and motorcycles, health and well-being, and news. The 100% video media (Brut, Konbini, Loopsider, Melty, etc.) are more popular with those seeking information on celebrity life and celebrity topics, travel and gastronomy, and international politics.Finally, discussions with friends and family also enable young people - teenagers more than young adults - to keep abreast of current events: almost 20% of young people mention discussions with friends and family as a way of keeping abreast of current events.Between the ages of 15 and 30, the majority of young people are regularly informing themselves on an increasingly wide range of subjects, using a variety of information sources and media (online, offline, exchanges)." These multiple practices contradict the idea that they are "less curious" or that social networks impoverish their culture. Thus, youth is a period of learning about informational practices that remain partly shaped by those of their family, their gender or their level of education. ". Young people's distanced information practices, composite confidence and avoidance strategiesIn 2024, Arcom (Autorité de régulation de la communication audiovisuelle et numérique) undertook a survey of French people's relationship with information. According to this survey of 3,356 people aged 15 and over, the French have a close relationship with information: 94% say they are interested in information, and the same proportion keep themselves informed on a daily basis. The Arcom study reveals that the French feel fairly well informed on the subjects that interest them. Despite this interest, information overload leads a majority of them to adopt avoidance behaviors (changing TV channels or radio stations, suspending app notifications).These avoidance strategies are, however, more radical among 15-25 year-olds: "They avoid all-news channels, debates on potentially divisive subjects. If the headlines are too negative, they zap (don't read the article, change channel, scroll...). They disconnect either from a particular subject (e.g. wars), or from news in general".The authors of the survey looked more specifically at the teenage segment. Although 15-19 year-olds are less interested in political and general news than adults, they still keep themselves informed "to understand the world around them, to educate themselves and to keep abreast of major events. They need to 'get the story', especially when it comes to 'celebrity' news, which is of particular interest to them (35% vs. 24%)".Teenagers get their information mainly from social networks (44% vs. 18%) and video platforms (34% vs. 10%). These video platforms (YouTube, Instagram and Tiktok) meet their expectations: "very short formats (under 5 min) and in video". They are more likely than the rest of the population to consult Brut (33% vs. 22%), Kombini (27% vs. 18%) or Hugo Decrypte (29% vs. 11%).Hugo Décrypte is fairly emblematic of the 15-19 age group's relationship with information, their expectations and their need for reference points: "a strong presence on social networks, fast, accessible and up-to-date information"." As citizens-in-training, young people are seeking and creating their bearings in this information-driven world. Their confidence is composite. For them, more than for others, the fact that a piece of information is picked up by the media (33% versus 23%), or that those close to them talk about it (20% versus 10%), are guarantees of reliability. However, they also trust content creators (41% vs. 24%) and celebrities (37% vs. 27%) more than the average."Overall, despite having more distanced, less frequent and less expert information practices than their elders," conclude the study's authors, " 15-19 year-olds don't seem any less well-informed if we consider their results on the quiz " ( four quiz-type current affairs questions were used to test the level of information on current affairs). They are also "less permeable to conspiracy theories than the rest of the population". Media trust and verification practices among 16-17 year-olds vary according to social backgroundThe survey conducted by Sophie Jehel, Professor of Information and Communication Sciences (Paris 8 University) and Jean-Marc Meunier, Senior Lecturer in Cognitive Psychology (Paris 8 University), in collaboration with the Centre de Liaison de l'Enseignement et des Médias d'Information (CLEMI) and the Observatoire des pratiques numériques des adolescents en Normandie (OPNAN), aimed to assess the relationship between students in Première (general and vocational streams) and misinformation, and their practices in verifying information. With regard to vocational streams and the working classes, this survey (following on from numerous other studies) tends to show that information practices differ significantly according to social origin.According to the survey, 98% of first-year students (88% aged 16-17) have smartphones, and use a variety of news sources. Nearly half have downloaded a news application. They favor two sources of information: social networks (especially Instagram stories) and television. Television is the primary source of information (for 43% of them), with the news also the source they consider most reliable.In the vocational streams, first-year students show greater distrust of the media and television (23%), and greater confidence (albeit relative, 14%) in social networks.At the same time, information is received by individuals on social networks and by families on television: conversations with family and friends play a major role in interpreting information and updating knowledge, particularly in more privileged environments." Contrary to the myth of the "digital natives" and the common perception that teenagers will post anything on social networks, the majority of teenagers say they are cautious when it comes to sharing their "opinions" on digital platforms.. 70% never do. Girls even less so (74%). The most cautious or silent are the children of entrepreneurs and farmers (79%). When teenagers do share their personal opinions, it's infrequent anyway (only 4% share them often)".The survey also aimed to find out whether teenagers were familiar with conspiracy theories. "This open-ended question did not elicit many responses, with almost one in two young people either not answering or saying they were not familiar with it. Girls, and students in vocational courses, are further removed from these issues". The two most frequently cited conspiracy theories are the Platist theory (according to which the earth is flat) and the Illuminati - a sect that is supposed to rule the world. Other theories such as extraterrestrial and reptilian conspiracies, or "walking on the moon" are cited more marginally. "Teenagers don't feel particularly exposed to conspiracy theories: half of those surveyed knew nothing about them. For some, it's their IME courses that will introduce them to these theories," observe the survey's authors.Information verification: 3 different profilesThe survey distinguishes three profiles regarding their information verification practices:a first profile of young people who prefer a media approach, and the trust they place in it;a second profile for those interested in the formal dimension of content (author's signature, title);a third profile for those who are primarily interested in content coherence. " The media and reputation approach is more prevalent among working-class children (49%), while the formal qualities approach is more common in more privileged environments (54%).. The coherence approach does not seem to be socially determined: it would seem to be linked to a greater habit of discussion with adults outside the family".A positive assessment of media and information literacy (MIE)According to the students' statements, it was in the second year of secondary school that they mainly benefited from EMI courses (68%), and to a lesser extent in the third year (11%). They would like to see this learning reinforced in junior high school, but without diminishing it in high school. The assessment of students who have taken part in this type of EMI session is particularly positive: 90% of pro students think that the courses have helped them to be better informed, to spot fake news and to be more vigilant about what they publish themselves; 61% of GT students think the same. " Adolescents particularly appreciate educational scenarios that take into account their experience and enable them to carry out personal documentary research," conclude the authors.This study was commissioned by CLEMI (Centre de Liaison de l'Enseignement et des Médias d'Information). It is the fruit of cooperation with the CEMEA (Centre d'entraînement aux méthodes d'éducation active) as part of the "Éducation Aux Écrans" training program in the Normandy region. Anne Cordier: " Young people take advantage of information resources that adults often overlook ".In Grandir connectés : les adolescents et la recherche d'information, Anne Cordier, University Professor in Information and Communication Sciences (Centre de recherche des médiations laboratory - Université de Lorraine), looks at the relationship between teenagers and information. Based on research carried out in schools, she questioned the recurrent prejudices about young people and social networks, and the fears of these digital natives who have grown up with the Web: " their relationship with screens and information is far more complex than the term 'digital morons' once used to describe them implies". In Grandir informés : les pratiques informnelles des enfants, adolescents et jeunes adultes, Anne Cordier continues her interviews with these teenagers turned young adults, showing how their information practices have evolved, and the difficulties they encounter in this area." Contrary to popular belief, and confirmed by studies that are vague and purely declarative, children and teenagers do inform themselves. They find out about their interests and hobbies, but also about social issues that are important to them ". For Anne Cordier, in TheConversation, "these generations take advantage of information resources that often escape the adult gaze, such as Hugo Décrypte, which is highly popular with high-school students, or regional or national press titles, whose publications they follow via digital social networks. Andlet's not forget content creators, who play an important role in the information ecosystemof young audiences, particularly when it comes to feeding their curiosity about documentary information (on health, sexuality, physics or cinema).Advocating media and information education (MIE), she stresses that these informational practices "need support: children and teenagers alike appear to be very keen on support in this area, aware in particular of the difficulty of evaluating information in a generalized context of mistrust, or dealing with the reception of violent images online. They are also keen to further develop their information skills "to succeed in life"." Long-term studies and field surveys in schools show that it is difficult to establish a progression of learning in media and information literacy.. The time devoted to information in the classroom, to its analysis and discussion, is too sporadic. It takes time to integrate information learning into a media and documentary environment that is complex to say the least, to understand essential concepts such as information authority and editorial line, and to develop a culture of sources.For CLEMI (Centre de Liaison de l'Enseignement et des Médias d'Information), Anne Cordier has just carried out a comprehensive analysis of practices with teenagers (aged between 11 and 19). The study revealed that "teenagers enjoy being informed, despite the anxiety of current events. Unanimously, they accept the recommendations of the platforms' algorithms, which they perceive as helping them to stay informed. This study recommends the implementation of an active IME, capable of creating spaces for dialogue anchored in young people's daily lives, and which emphasizes the joy and opportunity of information and civic responsibility. ". Laurence Corroy: "Not reading the press or listening to the radio doesn't mean you've given up on current affairs"."It's common to read that young people no longer care about current affairs, that they're abandoning traditional media to focus on content disseminated by digital social networks," notes Laurence Courroy, University Professor (University of Lorraine) in Information and Communication Sciences, in The Conversation. " In these statements, often in the form of lamentations, several approaches are confused. Not reading the press or listening to the radio doesn't mean giving up on current affairs".Whereas previous generations developed preferences for one title or another, today's young people consult one or the other relatively indifferently. "When questioned, high-school and university students alike struggle to identify the editorial lines of daily newspapers or their political leanings. What interests them is journalistic information, rather than whether it comes from Le Monde, Libération or Le Figaro. They don't consult a daily for its positioning, but for the guarantee of quality it represents.. In this way, the major newspapers function globally as reference "brands".For teenagers, as for young adults, the break with previous generations lies in the digital use of information: digital social networks are their gateway to news, in particular YouTube, Instagram and Twitter, but also Spotify and TikTok to a lesser extent."The brief forms used on these networks echo the relationship that young people themselves have with the written word, through text messaging and emojis. The way in which messages are presented in images is appreciated, as is the possibility of sending information to contacts, possibly with one's own comments, which enables them to adopt a more active stance towards information".While senior citizens remain very attached to the printed press, "young people often find it difficult to read, sometimes abstruse and expensive (...) Being continuously informed via social networks can provoke anxiety about the world's disorders. We could talk about 'informational stress', caused by being informed all the time"." Finally, it's up to journalists and traditional media to think more about young people," concludes Laurence Courroy. "Laurence Courroy concludes, "by giving them a voice, by covering subjects they feel close to: ecology, gender issues, parity... Journalists' participation in Press Week at school is also a way of raising awareness of the press and the diversity of the media on offer, and of its importance in invigorating democracy".

ForewordYoung people's perceptions of the digital world are often based on a series of stereotypes: excessive screen time, focus on social network content alone, overexposure to disinformation... A number of surveys, however, counter these stereotypes and reveal, without idealizing them, the wide diversity of digital uses among young people.In 2023, CNIL teams carried out a major analysis and survey of the digital practices of teenagers. After reporting on the main findings of social science research on these practices, they conducted a survey on the digital practices of 11- to 14-year-olds.In its series of studies entitled "The French digital society", the ANCT takes a look at the persistent myth of "digital natives", which wrongly leads to young people being considered de facto experts in digital technologies. On the contrary, young people's digital practices are differentiated, heterogeneous and, above all, unequal.Piloted by the DJEPVA, the annual Youth Barometer has been surveying around 4,000 young people aged 18 to 30 since 2016. Over the years, this Youth Barometer usefully documents the evolution of the various forms of commitment and participation of young people in public life. In 2024, the Barometer found that "young people's commitment is not weakening, but is tending to change".A CREDOC survey conducted in 2022 among 1,500 young people aged 14 to 18 shows that despite the omnipresence of screens, writing practices are not disappearing. The survey, commissioned by the association Lecture Jeunesse, explores the different contexts of writing outside school (functional or leisure uses), the writing methods used (handwritten or digital) and the profile of young people who are moving away from this practice.The title of this dossier is taken from a conference organized in March 2024 as part of Numérique en Commun[s]. ANCT's Digital Society Program joined forces with the newspaper Le Monde to decipher young people's relationship with the digital world. The conference looked at the risks and opportunities that the Internet and digital technology present for young people, while questioning the balance between an overly alarmist or overly confident attitude towards these so-called " digital natives ". Digital teenagers: what the social sciences have to sayAs part of the CNIL's work to help young people protect their privacy, Mehdi Arfaoui, a sociologist at the CNIL's Digital Innovation Laboratory (LINC), and Jenny Elbaz, head of the CNIL's digital education mission, have undertaken to share the findings of research into the social sciences of digital teenagers.As Mehdi Arfaoui and Jenny Elbaz observe, the first observation in the literature is that digital activities play a key role in the social relationships of teenagers in general. Their daily lives are " made up of injunctions to digital presence and hyperconnectivity prompted by the principle of feedback (like, comment, share, even private message) and by reputation issues ". Digital technology encourages a blurring of the boundaries between "private life" and "public life", due in particular to the social value placed on sharing intimacy and the phenomenon of habituation to self-exposure.The quest for autonomy in adolescence generates a competitive game between family norms, school norms and peer group norms. " Most digital activity takes place not only out of sight, but also "out of mind" of adults, who have no knowledge of how the platforms mobilized work".Adolescence is a time for building a relationship with control (parental or academic) and exploring self-control. Adolescents recognize their need for limits, particularly through parental supervision. "However, when these modalities are not negotiated, or when they encroach heavily on their intimacy, they can be questioned and delegitimized by adolescents. The modalities of parental control can thus alternate or complement each other depending on the period, and are regularly renegotiated between parents and children".Numerous social, gender and class inequalities are expressed at different points in teenagers' digital practices. 11-14 years: a step-by-step appropriation of digital technologyTo better understand how teenagers view their own practices, the CNIL conducted a qualitative survey of 120 schoolchildren aged 11 to 14.The acquisition of digital devices (computer, phone, tablet), access to a number of applications and the creation of accounts all take place in stages, often following a non-linear trajectory.The stage that precedes the acquisition of their own tools is crucial: for the most part, middle-schoolers were introduced to digital technology long before they arrived at school: within the family, through their parents, or through the teenagers and young adults around them. " The first forms of digital appropriation often take place by proxy on the family tablet or directly on a parent's phone, whose use must be negotiated (time spent, installation of an application, etc.). In this case, children first reproduce uses that are authorized and/or valued by the family framework and tools".Subsequently, the acquisition of their own equipment also takes place in stages. For the majority of students, the acquisition of a smartphone and/or an Internet package takes place when they enter college, or a few months before/after. Some parents try to resist this group effect, either by keeping the touchtone phone against the child's wishes, or by switching to other types of device such as the tablet. The acquisition of one's own equipment and the type of equipment chosen for the child depend on a family organization already in place." In this way, the diversity of acquisition methods highlights the inequalities between households". 11-14 years: multiple injunctions for useOne of the surprises for the authors of the survey of 11-14 year-olds lies in the place occupied in the routines of 11-14 year-olds by the school's digital working environment (ENT). Teenagers often consult the ENT application as soon as they wake up, "to see if a teacher is absent", and before turning off the phone, "to check my timetable".More generally, when they acquire a phone or tablet, children don't usually make it a priority to join a social network. In fact, 11-14 year-olds, like their parents, are rather wary of digital spaces where they can be put into contact and visibility with strangers. The first uses are much more associated with passions (drawing, sports) and the consumption of cultural and leisure goods (video games, films and music, via Spotify, YouTube or Netflix).The creation of social network accounts comes later, first to interact with family members and peers. Installing additional applications is generally a gradual process, with schoolchildren only creating an account once the application has proven its worth. What's more, for many of them, the installation of an application is still subject to parental authorization.A frustrated relationship with supportAdolescence is a time of increasing digital injunctions. The standards to which adolescents are subjected are numerous and sometimes contradictory. The ways in which parents support their children's use of digital technology vary according to the family context (in particular, the parents' willingness and availability).Whatever the parents' style of support, schoolchildren accept and value parental mediation. " Adolescents' fear is less of being controlled in their digital use than of being prevented or punished without consideration for their real and concrete use (...) Parents' lack of knowledge of or trust in their children can lead to a circumvention of parental rules, likely to make their children's practices even more secretive for parents". Unequal digital skills and practices19% of 18-24 year-olds are not digitally literate. This figure, taken from the report La société numérique française : définir et mesurer l'éloignement numérique (French Digital Society: Defining and Measuring Digital Distance), clashes with the idea that there are such things as "digital natives ". The notion of "digital natives " conveys the idea that young people, because they were born with, or even in, digital technology, have a better grasp of digital technologies, their codes and related uses than older generations."A large number of studies show that the digital skills and practices of young people are differentiated, heterogeneous and, above all, unequal, insofar as they are dependent on very different social contexts". As a result, many young people, particularly those from low-income backgrounds, encounter difficulties in their use of digital technology, for example, in the context of their academic success or professional integration, for a variety of reasons ranging from the cost of computer equipment to a lack of confidence in their ability to learn and train with online tools."Despite using the Internet more intensively than their elders, usage does not guarantee expert use of these technologies," note the report's authors from CREDOC (Centre de Recherche pour l'Étude et l'Observation des Conditions de Vie) and CREAD (Centre de recherche sur l'éducation, les apprentissages et la didactique de l'Université de Rennes 2). Parents' cultural and digital capital plays an important role in the degree to which young people master digital tools. "The more cultural capital parents possess and the more digital skills they have developed themselves, the more they supervise their children's digital practices from an early age. Conversely, the fewer parents - often from low-income backgrounds and with few qualifications - have developed digital skills, the more they rely on schools to teach them the uses and best practices"." It's no surprise, then, that digital inequalities are very much in evidence in the education sector. ".As a result, the authors point out that the idea of digital natives is a " myth ". myth " Unfortunately, it still permeates collective imaginations, including those of young people themselves. " Unfortunately, it still permeates collective imaginations, including those of young people themselves: some of them integrate the idea that they are supposed to be digital experts, provoking a feeling of guilt and a lack of knowledge. a feeling of guilt among some of those who feel uncomfortable with digital tools ". Digital engagement, the number one way young people participate in public life"Contrary to what is often put forward in the dominant discourse, young people have not given up all involvement in public affairs. Recent surveys have shown that they are even more engaged than the not-so-young, putting certain preconceived ideas into perspective, describing them as massively withdrawn into a frigid individualism and locked into civic apathy", observes political scientist Anne Muxel, CNRS Research Director at Cevipof (Sciences Po), in TheConversation.Numerous studies have highlighted the singularity of this age group. With regard to voting, surveys on electoral participation show that, overall, young people are more likely to abstain than older people, even if the majority of them vote intermittently rather than systematically. In 2023, the Baromètre de la Jeunesse reported that 18-30 year-olds were more involved in other forms of participation (petitions, taking part in demonstrations, strikes, civil disobedience actions, etc.) than their elders. Signing a petition or defending a cause on the Internet or social networks remained, for example, the most widespread form of civic involvement among 18-30 year-olds (40% versus 32% of those aged 31 and over in 2023).Two recent surveys document this finding of a commitment by young people that is not weakening, but tending to change": the Baromètre 2024 de la jeunesse (Youth Barometer 2024 ) from the Direction de la jeunesse, de l'éducation populaire et de la vie associative (DJEPVA) and the " Jeune(s) en France" survey for The Conversation France. These two surveys provide a clearer picture of young people's state of mind, their confidence or concern about the future, the causes they defend and the ways in which they get involved.Read more : Digital engagement, the number one way young people participate in public life Digital technology doesn't turn young people away from writingDespite the omnipresence of screens, writing practices are not disappearing. This is shown by a CREDOC survey survey conducted in 2022 among 1,500 young people aged 14 to 18. The survey, commissioned by the association Lecture Jeunesse, explores the different contexts of writing outside school (functional or leisure uses), the writing methods used (handwritten or digital) and the profile of young people who are moving away from this practice.Even though 87% of 12-18 year-olds are equipped with smartphones, writing is still very much a part of life among the 14-18 year-olds surveyed. 92% of 14-18 year-olds write at least "sometimes" in their daily lives, and 60% write regularly, i.e. "every day or almost every day". Within this age group, the frequency of writing varies little according to age.On a daily basis, this practice is expressed in various forms, whether digital or handwritten: writing text messages, e-mails, shopping lists, memos, jotting down thoughts, writing words to friends...The written word, whether in paper or digital format, is part of young people's daily lives, as they memorize words or events (23%), put down their thoughts (19% do so "every day or almost every day"), send documents to their employer (17%) or write love notes (16%).Read more : Digital does not turn young people away from writing The Internet and young people: what are we afraid of?On March 5, 2024, as part of Numérique en Commun[s], ANCT's Digital Society Program teamed up with Le Monde newspaper for a conference aimed at deciphering young people's relationship with digital technology. The conference looked at the risks and opportunities that the Internet and digital technology present for young people, while questioning the balance between an overly alarmist or overly confident attitude towards these so-called "digital natives"."The negative impact of the Internet and digital technology on young people is regularly highlighted in public debate. Digital technology is accused of inducing neurodevelopmental disorders, conveying images that are inappropriate for young people and reducing interaction between parents and children, while at the same time limiting other practices that contribute to the development of young people, such as sports, outdoor activities or reading (...). "Different risks and practices" We need to distinguish between the different ways in which young people use digital technology and the Internet. (...) All those involved insist on the existence of differentiated practices within families, depending on social background and cultural capital. In this respect, children from well-off backgrounds develop digital practices that can be reinvested in their academic success, unlike children from modest backgrounds (...) ".The need to deconstruct certain discourses, without minimizing the risks" The deconstruction of certain preconceived ideas about digital technology and young people should not lead to the trivialization of certain very real risks. (...) In this context, can a balanced view of the digital world and young people be taken in the public arena, in the face of alarmist discourse or maximization of the stakes?For the speakers, it is imperative to base political discourse and public action on the scientific research available on these issues. Given the complexity of the issues raised by digital technology, they all stressed the need to strengthen links between different scientific disciplines, through interdisciplinary research programs. "Report on the Le Monde X NEC conference: Internet and young people: what are we afraid of?

ForewordThe third phase of the national strategy for artificial intelligence (AI), released a few days before the Summit, includes a major section devoted to the implementation of AI for public policy."AI will become a priority focus translated into ministerial roadmaps to be presented no later than June 2025. (...) The Ministry of Public Action, Civil Service and Simplification will coordinate interministerial actions to deploy AI in the public sector. (...) AI will be one of the priorities of the State Reform Fund"." A plan to deploy generative AI tools will enable every agent to benefit from AI assistants capable of saving them time and efficiency in their daily administrative tasks. (...) This trusted AI will always have a public agent in the loop (...) The tight steering of these deployments will enable their performance to be assessed in terms of time savings, costs and efficiency. On the basis of this evaluation and feedback, proven use cases will be deployed on a larger scale.In 2022, the Conseil d'État had laid the foundations for an AI administrative doctrine, organized around seven principles of trusted public AI.A few months later, ChatGPT burst onto the scene. The rise of generative AI is reshuffling the deck.As artificial intelligence systems (AIS) make their appearance in many areas of public action, it's time for feedback.The Conseil économique, social et environnemental (CESE), the Défenseure des droits, the Cour des comptes, the Commission de l'IA and the Direction générale de l'administration et de la fonction publique (DGAFP) all delivered their initial analyses in 2024 and early 2025: they all advocate strengthening interministerial management and clarifying a doctrine for the use of AI in public services.By emphasizing the "empowering" dimension of AI for agents, the AI Commission thus sketches out, in hollow, a doctrine of digital transformation that would be deployed "from below" : "The arrival of AI could be an opportunity to give public agents the ability to transform their own work, rather than undergoing transformation from above".The Défenseure des droits, responsible for defending the rights and freedoms of users of public services, is examining the growing use of algorithms or artificial intelligence (AI) systems in French public services, particularly in central government. Despite the "efficiency gains in decision-making ", the Défenseure des droits warns against " infringements of users' fundamental rights", and calls for human intervention to guarantee respect for users' rights.In June 2024, the DGAFP published a strategy for the use of artificial intelligence in human resources management (HRM) in the state civil service. It highlights use cases and issues guiding principles.While the Cour des Comptes recommends prioritizing "the missions and processes for which AI is likely to deliver significant gains in efficiency and productivity", it also outlines the main lines of a "robust public AI", based on sobriety in terms of data, models and infrastructures, and the ability of organizations to retain full control over them.The CESE calls on administrations to question the purposes of AI systems. To this end, it formulates two conditions for their deployment: "that they improve the quality of public service and the working conditions of the agents who contribute to it", and "that the obligations of transparency, accountability and explicability are genuinely applied, when AI systems are deployed to enforce the law, or when they lead to individual decisions producing legal, economic or social effects that affect individuals". Seven principles for "trusted public artificial intelligence" (Conseil d'État, 2022)"In August 2022, the Conseil d'État published a 360-page study on the contribution of AI to public action. The Conseil d'Etat therefore recommended that public authorities immediately define a doctrine for the use of AI: an administrative doctrine, which would make it possible to "control risks of all kinds (individual and collective)" and "guarantee the public utility of AI systems in all circumstances".The high court proposed to base the use of AI in the public sphere on seven principles:Human primacy. "Public AIS are conceived as tools at the service of human beings, which presupposes that they serve a general interest purpose and that the interference in fundamental rights and freedoms that results from their implementation is not disproportionate to the benefits expected from them".Performance. "Deterioration in the quality of a service due to automation is one of the most destructive factors for confidence in digital tools, particularly when, in the case of public services, users have no option but to turn to a competitor. Public authorities must therefore identify system performance indicators (accuracy, technical robustness, response time, etc.), and define the acceptable level of performance, taking into account the consequences of the error, while ensuring that the quality of the service provided is not adversely affected.Equity and non-discrimination. "AIS designers must choose, from among the various conceptions of fairness, the one that will guide the operation of the systems, and formalize this choice, while respecting the principle of equality. They must also take care to prevent unintentional discrimination, a particularly important issue for AIS decision support systems based on machine learning".Transparency. "This principle includes, at the very least, the right of access to the system's documentation, a requirement of loyalty consisting in informing people of the use of an AIS with regard to them, the auditability of the system by the competent authorities, and the guarantee of explicability. The technical complexity of certain AIS, in particular those based on deep learning, and the difficulty or inability to formalize the reasoning that led to the result produced, run the risk of accentuating the feeling of mistrust if the people on whom this result has an impact cannot obtain, in simple language, an explanation of the main reasons behind the decision or recommendation formulated by the system".Safety (cybersecurity). " Any AIS must integrate the issue of safety, i.e. preventing computer attacks and resolving their consequences."Environmental sustainability. "The environmental impact of AIS must be taken into account in the strategy of public AI in general, around a principle of global neutrality of AI, as in the design of each system, by comparing the extra performance enabled by higher computing power with its ecological footprint."Strategic autonomy. "Since AIS increasingly contribute to the essential functions of public power, they must be designed in such a way as to guarantee the nation's autonomy. While digital autarky would be an illusory and counter-productive objective, France must equip itself with the necessary resources, in terms of skills, infrastructure and data research structures, to reduce and choose its dependencies".However, administrations have not waited for such a doctrine to be put into practice, here and there, with varying degrees of maturity. "Above all, we note a very great heterogeneity in the maturity of administrations, the degree of progress of reflections and projects, and the scale of investments devoted to them", writes the Council. Pleading for a "proactive and lucid " strategy for the deployment of public AI, the high court invited the State to strike a balance between the development of AI for internal use and AI that directly benefits citizens, between uses dedicated to "service" and uses dedicated to "control". Giving public employees the ability to transform their own work, rather than having it transformed from above (AI Commission, 2024).The AI Commission, created in 2023, devotes a chapter of the report it submitted to the Prime Minister in March 2024, to the implementation of AI in public services. In it, she draws up a harsh assessment of the digitization of public services. " Too often, digital transformation has stopped at the dematerialization of procedures, without transforming in depth the flow of information, or the processing of requests. Promises to personalize (and therefore humanize) public services, to speed up processing and to simplify the work of agents have not been kept.For the Commission, AI is first and foremost " an opportunity to relaunch the digital transformation of public services"."Through its ease of use, generative AI offers the opportunity to unleash agents' creativity by enabling them to experiment with technology at their own level, without always needing a specific system". The Commission therefore recommends " encouraging public servants to seize these tools, all the more so when they are free for occasional use (...) The public service would benefit from equipping public servants with configurable AI so that they can deploy them themselves, whether these are off-the-shelf solutions or specific to the public service If public servants appropriate AI, uses will abound and will make it possible to identify more quickly where AI has value".By emphasizing the "empowering" dimension of AI for civil servants, the AI Commission thus sketches out a doctrine of digital transformation that would be deployed from below : "The arrival of AI could be an opportunity to give civil servants the ability to transform their own work, rather than having it transformed from above".Two pitfalls: the "big AI project" and the "all ChatGPT" approachShe warns, in passing, against two pitfalls to be avoided: " On the one hand, the 'big AI project', designed to do everything, replace everything, developed far from agents, users and the reality of public service. On the other hand, the "all ChatGPT", in which a commercial and foreign universal conversational robot would become the only use of AI in public service".Citizens themselves could be called upon to contribute to AI-enabled public services, " whether to define how they operate or to participate in their construction. Their involvement is crucial if AI-enabled transformation of public services is to avoid reinforcing bureaucratic, inexplicable and distant centralization". The Commission mentions the " alignment assemblies " convened in Taiwan to define rules for AI deployment and behavior in the public service.To give wide access to generative AI services and avoid double investment, the Commission recommends that the capacity for technical steering and execution in public services be strengthened. "At inter-ministerial level, a real technology directorate should be able to provide not only doctrine, but also quality infrastructures (hosting, computing power, software factory, digital identity etc. ), expertise and transformation budgets. At a time when the State is seeking to reinternalize skills and circulate them between ministries, it needs to strengthen its ability to produce quality digital products".Off-the-shelf AI solutions?The Commission, incidentally, sets the terms for a debate on the use of off-the-shelf AI solutions."From 2024, public services will have to decide whether to use off-the-shelf AI solutions, enter into partnerships with companies, or redevelop their own tools. (...) Off-the-shelf solutions will have the advantage of performance and simplicity, as they are immediately available, and can even be integrated directly into agents' tools (office suite, search engine). Some ministries, for example, have banned the use of IT development tools such as Github's Copilot or GPT-4."However, the Commission reminds us that off-the-shelf solutions have their limits: "either because they don't fit in with existing tools, or because they aren't adapted to certain sensitive uses. It would be tricky to ask ChatGPT to summarize a memo to a minister, for example. But it would be absurd for every ministry and local authority to redevelop or buy an AI capable of summarizing a memo without leaking the data. Human intervention as a guarantee of user rights (Défenseure des droits, 2024)In a report published on November 13, 2024, the Défenseure des droits, responsible for defending the rights and freedoms of users of public services, examines the growing use of algorithms or AI systems in French public services, particularly in central government."Despite gains in decision-making efficiency ", the Défenseure des droits warns against " infringements of users' fundamental rights".In this report, the Human Rights Defender examines the effectiveness of two guarantees that are particularly important in ensuring respect for these rights: human intervention in decision-making and control of systems, and the requirement for transparency towards users.Although user complaints are still few and far between, the Défenseure des droits has identified a"systematic" problem of trust between users and the administration. In this respect, she points out that the transparency of public action must be seen as a "prerequisite for combating possible errors, abuses and discrimination (...) However, information obligations are sometimes little or poorly respected due to the opacity of procedures carried out by or with the help of algorithms".When an administrative decision is said to be " partially automated ", a public official must take a positive, concrete and significant action based on or alongside the result generated by the algorithm, in the decision-making process. The Défenseure des droits notes, particularly on the basis of the complaints it receives, that this intervention is sometimes non-existent and sometimes inconsistent or biased, when the people involved in individual decision-making tend to endorse the results produced by the system without questioning them.In view of these limitations, and their impact on the rights of public service users, the Human Rights Defender recommends the introduction of mandatory criteria and operating procedures to define more precisely the nature of the human intervention required.Read more :The Défenseure des droits calls for vigilance regarding the use of algorithms in public services Civil service: Using AI to support rather than replace human work (DGAFP, 2024)In June 2024, the Direction Générale de l'Administration et de la Fonction Publique (DGAFP) published a strategy for the use of artificial intelligence in human resources management (HRM) in the state civil service."Although the least skilled occupations are currently the most exposed to automation, generative AI can improve the performance of less skilled workers, while advances in generative AI can increase the exposure of highly skilled occupations."The DGFAP has identified 26 cases of use of AI for HRM in the state civil service:five use cases deemed particularly "desirable": analysis of internal survey results; contextual training recommendations; personalized learning; drafting job descriptions; identification of emerging skills).four others considered "no-no's": early detection of mental health problems; analysis of relationships between colleagues; automated video interviews with candidates; recognition and reward systems.DGFAP concludes with three guiding principles:" Human control: consultation and autonomy (setting the framework for use in collaboration with employee representatives; declaration of AI use by agents; freedom of agents to use AI tools or their results) ;Protection of the agent and the administration Data protection: legal and transparent use of (private and sensitive) data; robustness and security of AI;Ethics : transparency, justice, equity, diversity, inclusion, non-discrimination." Productivity, trust, frugality: pillars of a robust public AI (Cour des Comptes, 2024)Since 2015, Bercy has deployed, on an experimental basis, no fewer than 35 artificial intelligence programs (taxation, customs controls, anti-money laundering, public statistics, consumer law...). On October 22, 2024, the Cour des Comptes published its observations on the implementation of AI at the Ministry of the Economy and Finance.The Cour des Comptes assessment is broadly in line with the employment doctrine advocated by the Conseil d'Etat. " The consideration of trust issues and environmental challenges when implementing AI systems is in the initiation phase within MEFSIN. The next step is to manage these challenges. The compatibility of these different factors - trust, environment and frugality - is a rare opportunity for the adoption of robust public AI.For the Cour des Comptes, AI systems at Bercy improve productivity in the majority of cases, but do not necessarily free up jobs. It regrets that AI is " very poorly addressed in the context of ministerial social dialogue, and project management reserves too limited a place for the quantitative and qualitative implications of AI systems for the work of the agents concerned".The Ministry of the Economy and Finance "must anticipate with greater precision the consequences of the use of AI in terms of human resources, in order to control its effects on the nature of the work entrusted to agents, retain the necessary skills and distribute the productivity gains enabled by these technologies in a relevant way."The Ministry of the Economy and Finance must also "guarantee the frugal use of AI. The concept of frugal AI argues that, over and above the ecological benefits, sobriety in terms of data, models and infrastructure promotes spending efficiency, the robustness of AI systems and the ability of organizations to retain full control over them. This approach assumes that the choice to use an AI system takes into account the costs associated with the system's entire lifecycle".In particular, the Cour des Comptes recommends :identify the ministerial body responsible for the strategic management of artificial intelligence and digital data;identify the missions and processes for which AI is likely to bring significant gains in efficiency and productivity;promote the measurement of the environmental impact of AI systems throughout their lifecycle, with a view to reducing it, among the departments of the economic and financial ministries;promote a frugal approach to the implementation of AI systems among the departments of the economic and financial ministries.Prioritize productivity issues?In another report published in January 2025, the Cour des Comptes focuses above all on productivity gains. "The situation of public finances and the necessary trade-offs between digital projects argue in favor of public administrations prioritizing artificial intelligence projects that bring tangible gains in productivity. (.. ). The various types of AI that exist are capable of delivering productivity gains, and the example of the French Ministries of Finance offers encouraging prospects in this area. As part of this dynamic, the interministerial body must ensure that AI-based digital projects enable productivity issues to be prioritized". Questioning goals to prioritize projects (CESE, 2025)On January 14, 2025, the French Economic, Social and Environmental Council (CESE) published its initial conclusions on the acceptability of AI in a 224-page opinion.In a chapter more specifically devoted to AI deployment in public services, the EESC reviews a number of AI systems deployed in public services.According to the CESE, integrating AI requires administrations to consider a series of questions: "Why is this modernization essential: to improve service quality? to cut costs? to reduce the number of public-sector employees? By questioning the aims of the transformation, this makes it possible to prioritize the most transformative projects, taking into account ethical criteria and the principles inherent in public service".In conclusion, the EESC calls for AI systems to be deployed, but on two conditions:"that they improve the quality of the public service and the working conditions of the employees who contribute to it";"that the obligations of transparency, accountability and explicability are truly applied, when AI systems are deployed to enforce the law (for example, to calculate the amount of a tax), when they prove to be unavoidable (following the example of Parcoursup) or when they lead to individual decisions producing legal, economic or social effects that affect people".In line with its previous opinions, the EESC recommends :"systematically offer support and a human touch as an alternative to paperless services, as is the case with the France Service centers. enshrine in law the principle of a right to non-digital services, and guarantee equal access and freedom of choice for everyone.Read more : CESE: Questioning purposes to prioritize AI projects in public services