What is Territorial E-Administration

This chapter deals with the integration of OSS in local and territorial e-administration and its relations with the state level in France. France includes both many local collectivities: (36,568 local collectivities) on four levels (local, departmental, regional, and central) and a centralized State. The policies defined in France and promoted by initiatives from the European Union are leading to the definition of a normative framework intended to promote interoperability between information systems, the use of free software and open standards, public-private partnerships, development of know-how and abilities. These policies are applicable to State agencies but are not required for local and regional collectives because of the constitutional principle of administrative freedom. The chapter shows how the integration of all administrative levels can be operated in an e-administration framework OSS based, often coexisting with proprietary software. The legal, political, and technical (III) frameworks of such integration are presented.