Changes on the way for the .fr domain

Press release
Saint Quentin en Yvelines, March 2nd 2010

On March 2nd, 2010 the French Minister for Industry, Christian Estrosi, appointed AFNIC as the Registry for the .fr domain under the Order of 6 February 2007.

AFNIC’s seven-year appointment comes after a public invitation to tender issued on 15 January 2009.

AFNIC welcomes this decision as confirmation of its long-standing policy for developing the domain, which has made .fr the favourite choice of French users today.

Jean-Claude Gorichon, Chairman of AFNIC’s Board of Directors, declared:

Nearly 190 organisations and individuals in France and abroad gave their support to AFNIC’s bid.

The appointment comes with a contractual framework including some entirely novel features. It provides for a number of changes of structural importance for the way the .fr is managed.

First, a relaxation of the conditions for registering a .fr name

• Availability of .fr names to French people living abroad.
  This will come into force within the next fortnight. Expatriate French citizens will then be able to register their chosen .fr domain name, without having to establish that they have an address in France.


• Within two years of this appointment, the .fr domain will become available to individuals and organisations based anywhere in the European Union.
  This is a firm commitment, and will be the subject of a process of a public consultation.

Second, significant efforts will be made in a number of directions

• Transparent and readily-understood offerings to end users.
  Registrars which fulfil certain conditions will have a special status, and there will be regular surveys of registrars’ service quality and tariffs. These surveys will be done by an independent body, and the findings will be published.


• Research and Development.
  AFNIC will enhance its contribution, devoting at least one third of its R&D expenditure and a proportion of its net income to R&D partnerships, knowledge-transfer programmes and the endowment of an AFNIC Prize for Innovation.


• Security.
  With an undertaking to devote a proportion of its turnover to investments in security-related hardware and software (its own anycast cloud, data escrow on a secure site in France, establishment of a Business Continuity Plan, etc.).

These measures are all in keeping with what has always been AFNIC’s mission: to be one of the first-class Internet organizations in France in the service of the general good.

Further information

Misterial Order of 19 February, 2010 (In French only)

Decree of 6 February, 2007 on French ccTLDs (In French only)

About AFNIC

(Association Française pour le Nommage Internet en Coopération )

Non-profit organization, AFNIC is in charge of the administrative and technical management of the .fr (France) and .re (Reunion Island) Internet domain names.
AFNIC brings together public and private members: representatives from the French government, Internet users and Internet Service Providers (Registrars).
Further information.