13 S. Assar et al. (eds.), Practical Studies in E-Government: Best Practices from Around the World, DOI 10.1007/978-1-4419-7533-1_2, © Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2011 Abstract Public procurement constitutes a significant portion of national PIB in all countries and electronic platforms for supporting public transactions are an important application of e-government. In France, new regulations since 2005 are pushing public and private actors to adopt electronic means for handling all steps of the purchase process in public organisations. Based on quantitative and qualitative surveys made between 2005 and 2008, this chapter presents the general topic of e-procurement and specifically discusses the problem of e-procurement adoption in public institutions in France. The conclusions of these investigations spanning a three years period, are that public e-procurement is constantly progressing, although difficulties related to insufficient technical skills and the complexity of the juridical context hinder seriously its full adoption. They also show that a digital and an organisational divide is appearing between big administrations which have the adequate resources and skills to fully adopt e-procurement, and small administra- tion (i.e. local authorities) which are still reluctant or unable to conduct a purchase in a digital manner. 2.1 Introduction Since 1 January 2005, all public entities that are subject to the public procurement code in France, such as administrations, local authorities, hospitals, and public institutions, have been required in accordance with Article 56 of the French law, 1 to accept electronic tenders from vendors. That date was fixed following the over- haul of the public procurement law published in September 2001; it was one of the 140 measures in the government’s electronic administration program (ADELE) S. Assar (*) Institut Télécom, Telecom Business School, 9, rue Ch. Fourier, 91011 Evry, France e-mail: said.assar@it-sudparis.eu Chapter 2 E-Procurement, from Project to Practice: Empirical Evidence from the French Public Sector Godefroy Beauvallet, Younès Boughzala, and Saïd Assar