Infoworld.com reports that the French Prime Minister has received a report recommending publishing all French documents in OpenDocument Format. There’s also talk of funding development of open source software in the report:

In the report, Carayon also recommended the government fund a research center dedicated to open-source software security, and set up a system to help national and local government agencies exchange information about best practice in the use of open-source software.

I’ll have to find this report and see it for myself. If you have a pointer to a copy (in an open format, of course), I’d appreciate a link.

I’m sure Microsoft’s response to this won’t be far behind when there’s any sign of taking this seriously, and their work in Massachusetts suggests FUD is ahead. But if France follows through on this it will be time to play the La Marseillaise. Ironically, and somewhat distantly related, I was whistling The Internationale today.