Stephane Van Gelder, chief editor at DomainesInfo.fr, writes on his blog that the French government officially released a public consultation about who should run the .FR domain extension.

So, is France gearing up to change its registry?

According to Stephane's post, that question has been bugging the people at AFNIC ever since the French government published a decree on February 8th 2007 in which it was clearly stipulated that there would soon be an RFP (request for proposals) for the management of .FR.

AFNIC was both surprised and angered at the government's move, which clearly undermines its position as France's registry. Those reactions are understandable as AFNIC, since its creation on January 1st 1998, has always been state run. Its board has 10 members, four of which are elected. All the others are nominated representatives of various ministries and state institutions. The board's president (who enjoys a double vote) can only be chosen amongst the elected member. And an extra representative of the government sits in at every board meeting and has veto power over any decision the board makes.

The elected board members are representatives of the registrars and users communities. Stephane sat on the AFNIC board since 2004 as one of the two registrar representatives and he is currently serving his second consecutive term (the maximum allowed under AFNIC rules). In that time, he has seen first hand a system that, while giving registrars and Internet users the opportunity to voice their opinions, remains firmly in government control.

So when that same government decided a fresh look was needed on how the French namespace is run, it was a bit of a bombshell for AFNIC.

Before the RFP can be launched, the decree clearly stated that there would be a public consultation. Since last year however, the process has seemingly stood still.

As soon as the decree came out in 2007, as a registrar representative, Stephane contacted François Loos, French Industry Minister at the time, to request that the accredited .FR registrar community be included in the process. Loos assured him this would be done, but in the meantime France held national elections, a new President was sworn in and the Industry Minister changed.

Nearly a year after the decree was published, Stephane therefore asked Vincent Thery - a high-ranking civil servant in the Industry Ministry - who also happens to serve as the Industry Ministry's representative on the AFNIC board and has done since AFNIC was started, and who is in charge of the public consultation questionnaire – to meet with a small number of registrars and get their views on how .FR should be handled. The meeting happened in January this year, and Vincent came away visibly surprised that most of France's major registrars don't feel .FR has been opened up enough for the suffix to really grow.

Vincent listened to the group of registrars and has included some of the points that were raised in his questionnaire, which was finally released (in French) on April 25th, 2008. You can find it here. Deadline for answers to the public consultation is June 24th, 2008.

From there, things promise to get interesting as the French government launches its RFP and we find out if anyone wants AFNIC's job.

Source: Posted on April 25th, 2008 by Stephane van Gelder on his Blog