Early access to public archives

The public archives are, as a matter of principle, freely communicable 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 derogation to consult documents which are not yet freely available. The administration of archives — i.e. the interdepartmental department of the Archives of France, the Directorate of Memory, Heritage and Archives and the Archives Directorate of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs — may in fact 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 Observatory on Derogations is to report on the policy on access to public archives which are not freely communicable. This dataset aggregates all data relating to requests for early access to the non-freely communicable public archives that received a response in 2021, with the exception of those investigated by the departments of the Ministry of the Armed Forces and the Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs. Details of the indicators are available in the Annex (downloadable via the “Export” tab). Read more [on access by derogation (FranceArchives national portal)](https://francearchives.fr/fr/article/26287581). Find out more [on the observatory of derogations (FranceArchives national portal)](https://francearchives.fr/fr/article/599778100).