The Conseil national du numérique (French Digital Council, abbreviated CNNum or less commonly CNN) is a French independent advisory commission created on 29 April 2011 by the French presidential decree n°2011-476. It was reorganized and expanded by another French presidential decree on 13 December 2012, to expand its spectrum of actions to all the questions set up by the development of the digital in society and economy.
The council issues independent opinions and recommendations on any question relating to the impact of digital technologies on economy and society. The government can consult the council on new legislation or draft regulations. In October 2014, the CNNum got responsible for organising a national consultation on the french digital strategy ("Digital Ambition" or Ambition numérique) which would lead to the drafting of the law for a digital republic. On June 18, 2015, the Ambition Numérique report was handed over to the French Prime Minister Manuel Valls by the president of the Conseil national du numérique, Benoit Thieulin, in presence of Ministers and Secretaries Emmanuel Macron, Marisol Touraine, Clotilde Valter and Axelle Lemaire. During the ceremony, Manuel Valls announced the digital strategy of the French government.
 On February 10, 2016, Mounir Mahjoubi was appointed president of the council by former president of the French Republic François Hollande. Mahjoubi launched a project on the digital transformation of SMEs, the digitisation of universities and digital inclusion. In January 2017, he resigned from the CNNum to join Emmanuel Macron's presidential campaign as Digital Leader. He was then appointed Secretary of State for Digital Affairs on May 17, 2017. Following his resignation, the presidency of the council is assumed in a collegial manner by three vice-presidents : Guy Mamou-Mani, Sophie Pène and Amal Taleb.
 In December 2017, the government repealed the decree of December 13, 2012 and replaced it with a new decree, appointing thirty new members. The Government appointed Marie Ekeland, co-founder of the Daphni investment fund, as president. On 19 December 2017, President Marie Ekeland and 28 of the 29 other members resigned following a controversy arising from the request for the ouster of Rokhaya Diallo, who had been appointed a few days earlier. This episode raises the question of the council's independence from the French government, with Marie Ekeland deploring in her letter of resignation that "the current form of appointment and functioning of the council is confusing and cannot guarantee its independence". The controversy attracted public attention and was related by The New York Times under the title "France Fails to Face Up to Racism".
 After several months of vacancies, a new term of office was appointed on 29 May 2018, with Salwa Toko as president. In 2019, the French newspaper Acteurs publics writes that "a year after its formation, the Conseil national du numérique starts at last to play its part as switchman and, sometimes, as contradictor to the Government".
 Following the text of Law No. 2018-699 of August 3, 2018 aimed at guaranteeing the presence of members of parliaments in certain bodies outside Parliament and simplifying the procedures for their appointment, the CNNum must include among its members two deputies and two senators appointed by the presidents of the two parliamentary chambers, the National Assembly and the Senate.
 Since 2018, the CNNum has published several reports on digital accessibility, platform workers, digitisation of the health system, digital identity, or the environmental impact of digital technologies.
 The council can be mandated by the French government to organize citizens consultations over different topics, usually regarding issues related to digital regulation. These consultations are open to all and can be organized online as well as during "contributive events", where participants are invited to collectively reflect on one topic.
 In July 2018, the French secretary of state for digital affairs and former president of the CNNum, Mounir Mahjoubi, tasked the French Digital Council with the organisation of a large citizens consultation on new digital regulations, entitled "General Estates on new digital regulations" (états généraux des nouvelles régulations du numérique), under the patronage of French prime minister Edouard Philippe.
 From July 2018 to January 2019, working groups including CNNum members, experts and administrations worked on public regulations scenarios divided in four topics:
 The results of the first phase of work was handed over to Mounir Mahjoubi on February 14, 2019, by the president of CNNum, Salwa Toko.
 The second phase invited a wider audience made of civil society, platforms, various organisations or think tanks, experts, and academics to react on the different scenarios and recommendations that emerged from the first phase of the General Estates. It invited everyone to contribute to the reflection on new tech regulation via an online consultation platform, using civic tech and participatory democracy tools. The consultation also included thematic workshops organised between January and May 2019.
 Participants were invited to contribute on 6 topics :
 The advisory commission claims to have received more than 900 contributions for around 800 participants.
 The citizens consultation resulted in the publication of a synthesis of contributions on May 12, 2020.
 On September 4, 2014, French Prime Minister Manuel Valls asked the French Digital Council to handle a national consultation on digital technology. The national concertation aimed at experimenting an unprecedented manner of public policies construction, using participatory democracy tools. The consultation took place under the patronage of Axelle Lemaire, Secretary of State for Digital Affairs, and Thierry Mandon, Secretary of State for State Reform and Simplification.
 For five months (October 2014-February 2015), the CNNum led a broad consultation on France's "digital ambition", in order to gather proposals and courses of action to make digital technologies an asset, both from an economic and societal point of view. The CNNum decided to structure this consultation around twenty-six consultations divided into four themes: "Growth, innovation, disruption"; "Loyalty in the digital environment"; "The digital transformation of public action"; "The digital metamorphosis of society".
 The online consultation platform, designed with the civic tech organisation OpenDemocracy allowed every citizen, public or private organisation to contribute to the proposed themes. At the end of the consultation phases, the CNNum published summaries open to comments for each consultation, retracing the major controversies that emerged and the proposed courses of action.
 Events were also organised outside of Paris on each of the themes, respectively in Lille, Strasbourg, Bordeaux and Nantes, in the presence of local stakeholders. The independent advisory body claims it has received 17 678 contributions from around 5 000 participants.
 The national concertation resulted in the Ambition Numérique (Digital Ambition) report. The report was handed over on June 18, 2015, by the president of the CNNum, Benoit Thieulin, to the French Prime Minister, Manuel Valls, who publicly announced his government's digital strategy.
 The council's thirty members come from across the digital spectrum, and include researchers and activists. The council organises public consultations at both local and national level, and is in constant contact with France's digital ecosystem, including elected officials, members of civil society, researchers, digital experts, entrepreneurs and professional organisations.
 
The French Digital Council is composed of 30 members appointed by a decree issued by the Prime Minister of the French Republic dated May 30th, 2018. During the 2018-2020 mandate, members of the CNNum took positions in the public debate, sometimes in opposition to the French government. They were opposed to the Law of Mobility Orientation (Loi d'orientation des mobilités)'s dispositions concerning platform workers, as noted by media L'Usine Digitale, which titled "The President of the CNNum persists and signs: she doesn't want the platforms social responsibility charters for platform workers". The controversial dispositions were later partly censored by the French Constitutional Council. Members called for the implementation of social dialogue between platforms and workers as well as that of a "Digiscore", a rating system for platforms based on social criteria such as working conditions or workers' revenues. In an op-ed in Le Monde, Salwa Toko declared herself against a third status, specifically designed for platform workers in a grey zone between employment and self-employment : "Do we want to create a three-speed company, made up of employees, self-employed workers and workers with hybrid status, the conditions of which are then decided by judges on a case-by-case basis, leading de facto to the creation of a new precariat?", she asked.
 They also took position against the law on online hate speech proposed by La République en Marche deputy, Laetitia Avia, along with several other fundamental rights organisations and think tanks such as La Quadrature du Net or the Human Rights League. Members of the CNNum said they were "worried on the impact this law could have on freedoms", according to French magazine Libération. The "Cyberhaine" law proposal was challenged before the Constitutional Council in May 2020, which declared large parts of the text were unconstitutional.
 Members of the CNNum also acted in favor of digital accessibility for persons with disabilities. It first published an opinion asking the French government to "intensify its efforts in terms of digital accessibility", following the publication of a decree related to the accessibility of online communication services to people with disabilities. According to the advisory body, the initial decree project allowed for many possibilities for organisations to escape their obligations regarding digital accessibility. The French Digital Council called instead for more public resources allocated to the digital accessibility of online public services. In a February 2020 report entitled "Digital accessibility, between necessity and opportunity", Member of the CNNum Jérémie Boroy handed over the council's conclusions to Secretary of State for Digital affairs Cédric O and Secretary of State for People with Disabilities, Sophie Cluzel.
 http://www.cnnumerique.fr/avis/