France: a snapshot of digital skills

Introduction

In the 2024 edition of the Digital Decade report, France has achieved 59.7% basic digital skills coverage, slightly higher than the EU average of 55.6%. This puts France at 74.6% of the overall target for the EU 2030 goal, which aims to have 80% of the EU population possessing at least basic digital skills despite an annual degrowth of 1.9% from the previous year.

According to the Digital Decade report 2024, France performs slightly worse than the EU average in the percentage of ICT specialists in employment. It has has not surpassed the EU average, increasing from 4.3% to 4.7% (EU average – 4.8%).

France Stratégie published in 2022 an analysis note on the mapping of skills by profession with special focus on digital skills, since they are included both among the technical skills (specific to professional situations) and among the transversal skills for all professions. Computer use is low among blue-collar and low-skilled employees, but high among skilled professionals, managers, and technicians. 56% of IT technicians and engineers require programming skills; 99.9% utilise office automation skills, and 100% report using a desktop or laptop computer. 82% of the workforce utilises office skills. Employed French citizens have greater digital proficiency than the average French citizen. Few digital occupations, namely computer technicians and engineers, require sophisticated computer skills (programming) but those skills are still not widely distributed in the rest of the occupations, which may reflect a moderate adoption of digital technologies in the economy.

Launched in September 2017, the French Digital Skills and Jobs Coalition aims to meet the growing demand for a digital literacy in France and to support the development of digital skills that have become essential to easily access the labour market. Led and coordinated by MEDEF, the French National Coalition carries out an inventory of the existing competences, initiatives and good practices in the field of digital skills, as well as concrete actions throughout the country.

France is getting stakeholders involved in skills development activities as part of the employment and skills development commitment (EDEC) agreements. The public and private sectors have signed a number of partnerships (Engagement développement de l’emploi et des compétences – EDEC) on the topic of digital transformation, allowing participants to commit to proactive and anticipatory actions. One of the examples from 2022 is digital foresight 2025 partnership (EDEC Prospective Numérique 2025) launched by the representatives from the financial services and consulting industries in order to analyse changes in these industries, to forecast the need for digital skills, and to enable employees to adapt.

Objectives pursued by an EDEC are: Carrying out prospective studies to anticipate the evolution of professions and skills; The implementation of operational actions allowing professional organizations to adapt their GPEC, training and certification tools; Securing the career paths of working people: strengthening their employability, facilitating their career management, streamlining their recruitment, securing their mobility; Strengthening VSEs-SMEs, identifying skills development needs, equipping and pooling skills and The consolidation of a quality social dialogue around employment/training issues.

Overview of state strategies and national initiatives

State strategies

Stratégie du numérique pour l’éducation 2023-2027 (The digital strategy for education 2023-2027) presented in January 2023 is based on a series of measures to strengthen students’ digital skills and accelerate the use of digital tools for student success. The strategy is based on 4 axes and for each of them several key actions:

• A committed ecosystem at the service of a shared public policy;
• Digital education that develops citizenship and digital skills
• An educational community supported by a reasoned, sustainable and inclusive digital offer
• New rules for a ministerial information system at the service of its users

La stratégie nationale pour l’intelligence artificielle (The national strategy for artificial intelligence) in the first phase sought to position France as one of the world’s leaders in this set of scientific disciplines and key information processing technologies. It is initially endowed with nearly 1.5 billion euros over the period 2018-2022 for promoting the creation and development of a network of interdisciplinary artificial intelligence institutes, support for chairs of excellence in AI, financing of doctoral programmes, and investment in the computing capacities of public research institutions, advancement of artificial intelligence research. The second phase was launched in 2021, in order to increase the number of talents trained in this field and to accelerate the potential of research and development into economic success. During the next five years, it is anticipated that a total of 2.22 billion euros will be allocated to AI for the second phase, including 1.5 billion euros in public financing and 506 million euros in private co-funding. This second phase aims to disseminate artificial intelligence technologies throughout the economy while supporting development and innovation in certain priority areas, including embedded AI, trusted AI, and AI at the service of the ecological transition. On September 19, 2023, the Generative Artificial Intelligence Committee was launched. This Committee brings together actors from different sectors (cultural, economic, technological, research), to help inform the Government’s decisions and make France a country at the forefront of the artificial intelligence revolution.

France 2030 is 54 billion euros investment to companies, schools, universities, research organizations, to help them fully succeed in their transitions. France 2030 is defined by two cross-cutting objectives consisting in devoting 50% of its expenditure to the decarbonisation of the economy, and 50% to emerging players, carriers of innovation without unfavourable expenditure on the environment. Objectives of France 2030 are better production, better living and better understanding the world.

National initiatives

The French Recovery and Resilience plan (RRP) allocates 8.4 billion euros, or 21.3%, to the digital transition. France will invest €1.8 billion in the development and deployment of critical digital technologies, including cybersecurity, quantum computing, and cloud computing. The digitalization of primary and secondary institutions by means of digital equipment (€131 million) and the continued digitalization of public services are also essential investments. By 2025, 100% of households will have access to very high speed networks (100% fiber-to-home) thanks to a 240-million-euro investment in high-speed broadband across the territory.

Digital inclusion – digital advisers RRP initiative aims at increasing the digital skills of the French citizens, with human, interactive support by training and hiring 4,000 additional digital advisers for the general public. Digital advisers are posted in local authorities, NGOs or social enterprises promoting social inclusion (such as town halls, libraries, retirement homes, nursing homes, social action centres and local associations). The program supports their initial and continuous training in order to offer quality services to the people supported.

Pix is an initiative established in 2016, that aims to combat the digital divide and improve the digital skills of the widest possible audience through a free, universally accessible online platform. The Pix platform is a web-based service designed to assess, cultivate, and certify digital skills in France, Belgium, and Europe. After six years of existence, it helps more than 4.5 million students annually better their digital skills through fun and challenging tests, while teachers also monitor students’ digital literacy. Pix+Édu was introduced in 2022  as certification for teachers who already have a common practice and wish to enhance their professional skills related to the pedagogical uses of digital technology for the class and with students.

Funding opportunities

Funding opportunities for upskilling and reskilling to support the digital competences of individuals and organizations are available in form of loans, grants and financial instruments. For the period 2021 – 2026 most of the activities in digital transformation are financed through Recovery and Resilience facility but also as activities in Horizon, Erasmus+, ESIF and EEA grant schemes. You may find more on the page of French Recovery and Resilience plan in the article on the Digital Skills and Jobs Platform.