France Loves OpenStreetMap

The government of France sees the utility and value of OpenStreetMap.

France, through their Economic Ministry, has agreed to give access to all of their GIS data to the OpenStreetMap project. This means that citizens of France will be able to get the most recent, most accurate data collected by their government, and use it in creative and interesting ways. They can use the data to make their companies more competitive, to help improve the local business district, or to advocate for protecting the local wetlands. And soon people everywhere will have access to this data, with all of the powerful tools of OpenStreetMap. Bravo, France.

The government of France joins other governments that have recently committed their data to OpenStreetMap, including Canada, Austria, Philippines, New Zealand, Rhine-Westphalia in Germany, and many others around the world.

As announced on the OSM talk mailing list.

I'm pleased to announce that the french Minister of the Economy, and
its department DGFiP in charge of the french cadastre and its
vectorization has accepted our request to access their WMS for
OpenStreetMap.
The reuse of the french cadastre (the land registry with all parcels,
streets, roads, names, building feet, all at a very accurate
resolution - less than a meter) is allowed for all derivated work and
the french authorities agree that contributions based on the cadastre
for OSM are legal (with the condition to provide the source).
Although only about half of the communes are vectorized today, it will
be a great and unique source of accurate geodata for OSM in France.

Also many thanks to Denis Helfer who contacted the Ministery of the
Economy in the name of the OSM community.

Pieren