Paris Joins April and Strengthens Its Commitment to Free Software

Submitted by tgodefroy on 16 March, 2015 - 17:05

Paris, 13 March 2015. Press Release.

April has the pleasure to announce that the City of Paris has joined our organisation and wishes to further its action in favour of free software.

Following a request in December 2014 by the Greens' group in the City Council of Paris, and a deliberation initiated by Mr Emmanuel Grégoire, the Deputy Mayor in charge of modernising city government, Paris' membership to April was approved by the Council.

The City's press release [fr] mentions that “Paris is already very involved in the development, promotion and defense of free software. The city uses many tools from the free software world: 60% of its servers run GNU/Linux. Paris also develops software which it then contributes back to the free software community, such as EPM (a Public Market Elaboration and Procurement tool), CEP (a Professional Exams and Competition tool) or Lutèce (website generator).”1

“I am very proud that our free/libre application Lutèce is now widely used by large institutions, including the City of Marseilles and Météo France”, said Emmanuel Grégoire. He then underscored that “as part of April, Paris will further its action in favour of free software”.

April is delighted to count Paris among its 4,200 members, who are working together to advance free software. April's president Jean-Christophe Becquet stated that “Paris's new membership to April confirms not only its commitment towards free software, but also its recognition of how important it is to reinforce the free software movement model, in which April has played a fundamental role since 1996.”

“We encourage all local governments to follow Paris' example, and, through the use of free software, to promote more freedom and transparency in the interest of the public”, added Frédéric Couchet, executive director of April.

About April

A pioneer of Free Software in France since 1996, April is a major player in the democratisation of Free Software and open standards, and in their spread to the general public, professionals and institutions of the French-speaking world. In the digital era that is ours, it also aims to inform the public on the dangers of an exclusive appropriation of information and knowledge by private interests.

The organisation is a non-profit and it has over 4,000 members, who use or produce Free Software.

For more information, you may visit http://www.april.org/, contact us by phone at +33 1 78 76 92 80, or use our contact form.

Press contact:

Frédéric Couchet, Executive Director, fcouchet@april.org +33 6 60 68 89 31