{"slug":"france","name":"France","short_name":"France","iso_code":"FR","jurisdiction_type":"country","region":"Europe","subregion":"Western Europe","overview":"France applies the EU AI Act and has built its national approach around a national AI strategy launched in 2018 (successive phases to 2025), strong involvement of the data-protection authority CNIL, which publishes practical how-to sheets on AI and data protection, and the AI Action Summit hosted in Paris in February 2025. France has proposed CNIL, the competition and consumer authority (DGCCRF) and ARCOM among its AI Act competent authorities.","regulatory_status_summary":"EU AI Act applies; national AI strategy (phases since 2018) as policy; CNIL AI guidance; competent-authority designation in progress.","binding_vs_guidance":"Binding: none recorded. Strategy or guidance: National AI strategy; CNIL AI how-to sheets.","current_priorities":"AI Act authority designation, compute and sovereign model investment, public-sector AI use, CNIL guidance on training data and GDPR compliance.","regulators":[{"name":"Commission nationale de l'informatique et des libertés (CNIL)","url":"https://www.cnil.fr/en/ai-how-sheets","role":"Data-protection authority; publishes AI and GDPR guidance"},{"name":"Direction générale des Entreprises","url":"https://www.entreprises.gouv.fr/","role":"Ministry of the Economy directorate leading the national AI strategy"}],"official_sources":[{"title":"CNIL: AI how-to sheets","publisher":"CNIL","url":"https://www.cnil.fr/en/ai-how-sheets","document_type":"guidance","tier":1},{"title":"Stratégie nationale pour l'intelligence artificielle","publisher":"Ministère de l'Économie","url":"https://www.economie.gouv.fr/strategie-nationale-intelligence-artificielle","document_type":"strategy","tier":1}],"related_jurisdictions":["eu","germany","uk"],"url":"https://aipolicytracker.org/jurisdictions/france","source":{"official_source_url":"https://www.cnil.fr/en/ai-how-sheets","source_title":"CNIL: AI how-to sheets","source_publisher":"CNIL","source_document_date":null,"source_reference":null,"source_tier":1,"last_checked_at":"2026-09-26","last_verified_at":"2026-09-26","review_status":"verified","confidence_level":"medium","content_version":1,"change_summary":"Added in the September 2026 global coverage expansion; overview composed from the listed instruments and official sources. Reviewer to confirm regulators and status.","reviewed_by":"Bhaskar Bhatt"},"policies":[{"slug":"france-cnil-ai-how-to-sheets","id":"AIPT-POL-0076","permanent_url":"https://aipolicytracker.org/id/AIPT-POL-0076","title":"CNIL recommendations on the development of AI systems and the GDPR (AI how-to sheets)","short_title":"CNIL AI how-to sheets","jurisdiction":"france","instrument_type":"guidance","status":"guidance","is_binding":false,"ai_specific":true,"issuing_body":"Commission nationale de l'informatique et des libertés (CNIL)","summary_plain":"A series of practical guidance sheets, first published in 2024 and extended since, explaining how organisations can develop and train AI systems in compliance with the GDPR: defining a purpose, choosing a legal basis (including legitimate interest for web-scraped training data), data minimisation, retention, data-protection impact assessments, informing people and honouring their rights, and security of training datasets and models.","adopted_on":"2024-04-08","in_force_on":null,"applies_from":null,"official_source_url":"https://www.cnil.fr/en/ai-how-sheets","last_verified_at":"2026-09-26","reviewed_by":"Bhaskar Bhatt","content_version":1,"review_status":"verified","confidence_level":"medium","updated_at":"2026-10-15T06:46:24+00:00","url":"https://aipolicytracker.org/policies/france-cnil-ai-how-to-sheets"},{"slug":"france-national-ai-strategy","id":"AIPT-POL-0077","permanent_url":"https://aipolicytracker.org/id/AIPT-POL-0077","title":"Stratégie nationale pour l'intelligence artificielle (National AI Strategy, phases 1–3, 2018–2025)","short_title":"National AI strategy","jurisdiction":"france","instrument_type":"strategy","status":"adopted","is_binding":false,"ai_specific":true,"issuing_body":"Government of France (Ministry of the Economy, SGPI)","summary_plain":"Launched in March 2018 following the Villani report, the national AI strategy funds research institutes (3IA then AI clusters), talent, compute and business adoption. The second phase (2021) focused on training and diffusion into the economy; the third phase (2024–2025) emphasises sovereign generative-AI models, compute and public-sector use, and framed France's hosting of the AI Action Summit in February 2025.","adopted_on":"2018-03-29","in_force_on":null,"applies_from":null,"official_source_url":"https://www.economie.gouv.fr/strategie-nationale-intelligence-artificielle","last_verified_at":"2026-09-26","reviewed_by":"Bhaskar Bhatt","content_version":1,"review_status":"verified","confidence_level":"medium","updated_at":"2026-10-15T06:46:24+00:00","url":"https://aipolicytracker.org/policies/france-national-ai-strategy"}]}