From September 1986 until December 1997, INRIA (Institut National de Recherche en Informatique et en Automatique, the French Computer Science Research Institute) was responsible for managing the .fr. INRIA was therefore the NIC-France (Network Information Centre), initially for the needs of its own researchers and then for the entire French R&D community. INRIA was responsible for administering the only Internet service in France until 1992.
In 1992 NIC France opened up to everyone in France who wanted to connect to the Internet.
The commercial expansion of the Internet in 1994 saw the appearance on the market of new network service providers offering Internet connectivity. A NIC Consultative Committee (CC-NIC) was set up in November 1994.
Since June 1995 many Internet service providers have joined the Consultative Committee and contribute to the funding of NIC France. A naming charter was created in 1995 in order to set out the rules for assigning names in the .fr domain and to consider intellectual property issues for the first time.
On 1 January 1998, the AFNIC (Association Française pour le Nommage Internet en Coopération), an association governed by the French law of 1 July 1901, took over the NIC-France activities carried out by INRIA. The AFNIC intends to open up more widely to Internet users and to have a flexible management structure.
In 2001 the AFNIC opened the ccTLD .re for the overseas department of Reunion Island.
The .tf zone covers the French Southern and Antarctic Territories (TAAF). Since 2004, AFNIC manages the .tf.
