In France, the expansion of digital practices in both personal and professional spheres offered new social and economic opportunities but also generated negative effects. The digitisation of administrative procedures provided a new channel of access. However, one third of people aged 60 to 74 – over‑represented in rural areas – gave up using it. Teaching methods increasingly relied on digital tools, but their uptake remained shaped by socio-family inequalities: only 13% of students in the last year of lower secondary education (troisième) in priority educational establishments (éducation prioritaire) had a high level of digital skills. Social media created new forms of sociability; nevertheless, when consulted several times an hour, they could also be associated with depressive symptoms, as was the case for a quarter of women aged 18 to 24. Teleworking remained widespread following the Covid-19 crisis: 26% of employees worked remotely in 2023, compared with 9% in 2019. Online shopping grew considerably, but disparities in consumption by gender, age and level of education persisted.

In 2022, the digital economy business sectors in France generated a turnover of 365 billion euros and 143 billion euros in value added, representing 10% of the total value added produced by all non‑agricultural, non‑financial market sectors. These sectors comprised 369,100 businesses and accounted for 8% of total employment in full‑time equivalent terms. Digital occupations employed a higher proportion of managers and highly qualified professionals (70% of digital jobs) and fewer women (24%) than other occupations. Digital tools continued to expand within French companies, including the most recent technologies such as artificial intelligence, whose reported use increased in a single year from 6% of companies to 10% between 2023 and 2024. Digital tools developed across all sectors, including agriculture: two thirds of dairy cattle farms used robots and automated systems. However, the proliferation of digital tools entailed a significant environmental cost: for example, the manufacturing stage of a smartphone accounted for 97% of its carbon footprint, compared with 3% for its use.