1. What are Cookies ?
Cookies are pieces of data used by a server to send a user’s status information to the browser, and used by the browser to send back status information to the server of origin. This status information could be, for example, session ID, language, expiry date, reply domain, etc. Cookies allow users to retain certain information, such as status information, for the period of validity of that particular cookie whilst the user accesses different pages of a web site or when the user retains to the same web site later on.
There are a variety of different cookie types:
- Session cookies that disappear once the user leaves the site
- Permanent cookies that reside on the user’s terminal until their expiry date or until they are deleted by the user with the aid of their browser control features.
2. Cookies on this site
The cookies saved by France.fr on your terminal are for the purpose of assisting with browsing on our web site, and the optimisation and personalisation of our services on the site (these cookies are primarily concerned with our own web analytics solutions).
The Cookies that we employ allow us to:
- Establish statistics and figures regarding use and frequentation of the various elements that make up our site (sections and content visited, user path, etc.), allowing us to enhance the interest and usability of our services
- Adapt the presentation of our site to the display preferences of your web terminal or mobile device (display resolution, operating system employed, etc.) during your visits to our site
- Save information regarding your browsing preferences (choice of language).
3. Third-party cookies
On occasion, we include certain IT applications on our site that emanate from third-party sites and which allow you to share the content of our site with others or that allow you to share with these other people your own enquiries or your own opinions relating to the content of our site. This is the case, most notably, with « share », « recommend », « tweet » etc. buttons that stem from social media networks, such as « Facebook », « Twitter », « Pinterest », « Google + ». The social media network supplying any such application buttons will be able to identify you as a result of this button, even if you have not used this button during your visit to our site. In effect, this type of application button may allow the relevant social media network to follow your browsing path on our site, due solely to the fact that your account with the relevant social media network is active on your terminal (session open) at the time that you are browsing on our site. We exercise no control whatsoever over the processes employed by the social media networks in gathering information regarding your visit to our web site and which are associated to the personal data that they already possess. We invite you to consult the privacy policies of these social media networks in order to ascertain their intended uses, most notably with regards to advertising, for any information gathered via the use of these application buttons. Their privacy policies normally allow you the user to make your own choices with regards to these social media networks by defining your account settings for each relevant social media network.
4. How to change your cookie settings?
Default settings for web browsers are usually established in such a way as to accept cookies, although it is possible to change this quite easily by altering your browser settings. Nevertheless, please be aware that if you should choose to deactivate the cookies, it is possible that some of our content will not be accessible.
