Central portal
A central EIA portal has been available in France since 2018. The portal provides information on all projects for which an EIA must be carried out. Project developers can also use the platform to submit biodiversity data that must be reported to a competent government agency as part of the EIA. In addition, the responsible prefectures can use the portal to digitally display all documents required for formal public participation as part of the environmental impact assessment. The French portal is particularly noteworthy here, as it combines formal digital public participation and general access to environmental data, specifically biodiversity data, in one centralised portal. This is an important step towards centralised, integrated participation portals.
Source: Screenshot EIA portal France.
Social Media
There is an account on the platform X under @etude_impact, which is hosted by the French EIA portal. However, the account was only active from 29 March 2018 to 12 June 2019 and was only used to disseminate information about the portal itself and its activities, but not information on specific EIA procedures. It is to be welcomed that the existence of the portal was at least publicised on social media.
Archive function
The French EIA portal provides information on EIA procedures from 2007 onwards. However, links to the relevant information are generally only available online for procedures from 2018 onwards. The portal is searchable by type of project, topics, stage of the procedure and type of procedure. The procedures can also be searched by keyword. However, it is not possible to filter by date or time period. A rough search for procedures in specific regions is possible using a map function.
