France
Code des relations entre le public et l'administration, Livre III
CRPA, Livre III (ex-loi n° 78-753 du 17 juillet 1978)
France's access regime, codified in 2016 from the 1978 law. Applies to CNES and therefore to GEIPAN — though GEIPAN publishes its case base proactively, which usually makes a formal request unnecessary.
The clock
30 calendar days
One month's silence is an implicit refusal (décision implicite de rejet); there is no duty to answer sooner.
GEIPAN's published case base covers most sighting material; the CADA route matters only for what is not already online.
Reading the statute itself
The text of this one is not reproduced here: foreign legislation is published under its own country’s copyright rules, so it is linked instead. Everything on this page — the deadline, the appeal path, the fee standard — is Aletheca’s summary of that text, and the official source is one click away.
If they refuse
- Appeal deadline
- 60 days — two months from refusal to refer the matter to the CADA
- Appeal route
- Saisine of the CADA within two months of refusal — mandatory before litigation — then the tribunal administratif.
- Litigation
- Tribunal administratif, after a CADA opinion.
Fees and expedition
Fee-waiver standard
Consultation is free; copies at cost.
Aletheca argues this on every request it files here. A service that publishes every page it receives, free, to a public archive has an unusually strong showing — considerably stronger than a private requester’s.
Exemptions it allows
- Secret de la défense nationale
- Sûreté de l'État
- Vie privée
- Secret des affaires
Quirks worth knowing
Documents already published fall outside the access procedure — and GEIPAN publishes. Defence-classified records need ministerial declassification first, which no CADA request can compel.