Early access to public archives

Public archives are, as a matter of principle, freely accessible to all as soon as they are created. By way of exception, documents containing secrets protected by law may not be released before a certain period of time. However, it is possible to make a request for early access by derogation to consult documents that are not yet freely available. The archives administration – i.e. the interministerial service of the Archives de France, the Directorate of Memory, Heritage and Archives and the Directorate of Archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs – may indeed authorise the communication of certain documents before the expiry of the time limits which protect them, provided that the authority or service which produced the documents does not object. In the interests of transparency, the Derogations Observatory aims to report on the policy on access to public archives that are not freely accessible. This dataset aggregates all data related to requests for early access to non-freely communicable public archives that were answered in the course of 2021, 2022, 2023 and 2024 with the exception of those investigated by the services under 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 (national portal FranceArchives)](https://francearchives.gouv.fr/en/article/26287581). Find out more [on the derogations observatory (FranceArchives national portal)](https://francearchives.gouv.fr/en/section/600279175).