Eric Besson, the French Minister of the Economy, Finance and Industry, has launched a call for nominations for companies wishing to act as the registry for the 11 French country code top level domains.

Currently AFNIC is the company operating as the registry for six of the ccTLDs: .FR (France), .YT (Mayotte), .WF (Wallis and Futuna), .TF (French Southern and Antarctic Territories), .PM (Saint Pierre and Miquelon) and .RE (Reunion Island).

The other ccTLDs – .BL (Saint-Barthélémy), .GF (French Guiana), .GP (Guadeloupe), .MF for (Saint-Martin) and .MQ (Martinique) – are managed by other organisations.

The calls for nomination, one for each ccTLD, appeared in the Official Journal are to enable the implementation of the new legal framework, and applications close on 11 May.

AFNIC was formally designated as the registry for.FR in March 2010 following a call for applications. However, on the grounds of non-compliance with the Constitution of Article L. 45 of the French Electronic Communications and Telecommunications Act (which specifies the legal framework for managing French Internet extensions), a decision of the French Constitutional Council of October 2010 rendered the legal basis for that appointment null and void. A new legal framework has now been set up, but the call for applications must be repeated.

For more information, in French only, see www.industrie.gouv.fr/tic/consultation-publique/domaines-nationaux/aac-domaines-internet.php.

To register your .FR domain name, check out Europe Registry here.