Early access to public archives

Public archives are, as a matter of principle, freely communicated to all from their creation. By way of exception, documents containing secrets protected by law may not be disclosed before a certain period of time. However, it is possible to make a request for early access by way of derogation to consult documents that are not yet freely available. The administration of the archives – i.e. the Interministerial Service of the Archives of France, the Directorate of Memory, Heritage and Archives and the Directorate of Archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs – may authorise the communication of certain documents before the expiry of the time limits which protect them, provided that the authority or department which produced the documents does not oppose them. In the interests of transparency, the purpose of the Exemption Observatory is to report on the policy on access to public archives which are not freely communicable. This dataset aggregates all data on requests for early access to non-freely communicable public archives that received a response in the course of 2021 and 2022, with the exception of those investigated by the departments of the Ministry of Armed Forces and the Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs. The details of the indicators are available in the annex (downloadable via the “Export” tab). Learn more [on access by derogation (national portal FranceArchives)](https://francearchives.gouv.fr/fr/article/26287581). Read more [on the observatory of derogations (national portal FranceArchives)](https://francearchives.gouv.fr/fr/section/600279175).