Freely communicable archives
Article L. 211-1 of the French Heritage Code defines public and private archives as “all documents, including data, regardless of their date, place of storage, form and medium, produced or received by any natural or legal person and by any public or private service or organisation in the course of their activity”.
Pursuant to Article L. 211-4 of the Heritage Code, all documents considered as administrative within the meaning of Article L. 300-2 of the Code of Relations between the Public and the Administration (CRPA), but also documents excluded from the scope of Title I of Book III of the Code of Relations between the Public and the Administration, in particular jurisdictional or judicial documents, constitute public archives.
The regime for access to public archives is described in Articles L. 213-1 to 213-8 of the Heritage Code. The principle of the free communicability of archives, enshrined in article L. 213-1 of the same Code, means that documents that can be freely communicated, in particular on the basis of the code of relations between the public and the administration (CRPA), can be communicated without restriction once they have been deposited in the archives.
Archives that are not freely communicable
While most documents kept in public archives are freely communicable, others are only communicable under certain conditions, in particular time limits that range from 25 to 100 years.
Below is a non-exhaustive list of protected secrets and interests, by type or field, with an indication of the applicable deadlines :
- Medical secrecy : 25 years from the death of the person or 120 years from birth if the date of death is unknown
- Private life : 50 years
- Documents which contain an assessment or value judgment on a natural person, named or easily identifiable : 50 years
- Documents which show the behaviour of a person in conditions likely to be prejudicial to him or her : 50 years
- Fundamental interests of the State in the conduct of foreign policy: 50 years
- State security : 50 years
- Public security : 50 years
- Security of persons : 50 years
- Secrets of national defence : 50 years
- Birth and marriage registers : 75 years from the closure of the register
- Minutes and directories of public or ministerial officers : 75 years or 25 years after the death of the persons concerned
- Documents relating to investigations carried out by the judicial police (general case) : 75 years or 25 years after the death of the persons concerned
- Documents relating to cases brought before the courts and the execution of court decisions, subject to the specific provisions relating to judgments (general case) : 75 years or 25 years after the death of the persons concerned
- Documents relating to investigations carried out by the judicial police whose communication affects the privacy of individuals or which relate to a minor : 100 years or 25 years after the death of the persons concerned
- Documents relating to cases brought before the courts and to the execution of court decisions, the communication of which infringes on the privacy of the sexual life of individuals or which relate to a minor : 100 years or 25 years after the death of the persons concerned
- Security of named or readily identifiable persons involved in intelligence activities, whether or not the documents are subject to classification : 100 years or 25 years after the death of the persons concerned
In fact, documents that are not freely communicable are subject to special consultation procedures; consultation cannot be immediate, as they require special instruction and authorisation:
Documents subject to exemption (Public Archives)
For documents subject to communicability deadlines set by article L. 213-2 of the French Heritage Code, access is still possible before the deadline by means of an exemption request.
This request for early access to public archive documents that are not freely communicable must be made to the archive centre that holds the documents in question.
The procedure, governed by the information note DGPA/SIAF/2021/007 of the interministerial service of the Archives de France, is as follows:
After having precisely identified the documents to be consulted, a request form and the identification sheet for the documents to which access is requested must be completed (this sheet may be duplicated as many times as necessary). These two documents must contain the following information
- Contact details (the application being made on an individual basis. In the event of a positive response, only the person with an authorisation in his or her name may obtain access to the documents) ;
- Information concerning the nature of the research ;
- Reasons for the request and indication of the possible use that will be made of the documents ;
- Whether or not the right to reproduce the documents is requested. The authorisation to consult the documents requested does not automatically give the right to reproduce them. Authorisation to reproduce must therefore be explicitly requested and justified in the form ;
- Dated and signed reserve commitment ;
- Identification of the documents requested (document, file, article, etc.) with their reference, description and end dates.
If necessary, any document supporting the request may be attached (proof of filiation, mandate, certificate from the research supervisor, etc.).
The application is first sent to the department that produced the documents for prior advice. It is then sent for a final decision to the interministerial service of the Archives of France (SIAF) or, if necessary, to the National Archives or the Departmental Archives. The decision is notified by post.
In the event of agreement, it is up to the applicant to contact the service that keeps the documents in order to access them, according to the practical arrangements defined by this service. Authorisation to consult is given without time limit
As stated in the confidentiality undertaking signed on the application form, any disclosure of a legally protected secret contained in the documents to which access has been obtained is prohibited and may result in criminal and administrative sanctions.
If you wish to process personal data contained in the documents to which you have been granted early access, you are also subject to compliance with the law on the protection of personal data.
Please note that many files are only accessible in extracts, because they are kept in articles (i.e. boxes) which contain files which are not yet freely accessible. In such cases, the procedure for requesting access by derogation from the legal deadlines for disclosure should be used to enable the creation of a communication by extract.
Extracts” are documents that cannot be disclosed in whole boxes, as they require the archive curators to extract and prepare only the file(s) that concern(s) the request. These extracts are made exclusively by reservation and require several days, if not weeks, of delay before they can be consulted.
Documents under authorisation (private archives)
In accordance with article L.213 6 of the French Heritage Code, owners may subject the communication or reproduction of archives that they have donated or deposited to conditions that archive services are required to respect. Their consultation therefore requires a specific request for prior authorisation made to the rightful owners.
Documents in poor condition
The physical condition of documents sometimes requires that consultation be limited for conservation reasons. Nevertheless, an “exceptional consultation request” is still possible from the archive centre concerned.