JORF Scraper — French Official Gazette Laws & Decrees

Extract laws, decrees, ordinances, orders, and official notices from France's Journal Officiel de la Republique Francaise (JORF) via Legifrance. Returns structured data including full text, NOR numbers, publication dates, signature dates, and signatories. Filter by text type, date range, or keyword. No cookies, no login required.

How to scrape JORF data

This actor scrapes the Journal Officiel section of Legifrance, France's official legal database maintained by DILA (Direction de l'Information Legale et Administrative). The JORF has published every French law, decree, and regulation since 1868, with digital archives going back to 1990.

Search by Keyword

Enter a keyword to search across all JORF texts. The search covers titles, text bodies, NOR numbers, and related metadata. Examples: "energie renouvelable", "code du travail", "nomination prefet".

Filter by Text Type

Narrow results to specific types of legal texts:

• LOI — Laws voted by Parliament
• ORDONNANCE — Government ordinances (legislative delegation)
• DECRET — Decrees issued by the President or Prime Minister
• ARRETE — Ministerial or prefectoral orders
• AVIS — Official notices and opinions
• DECISION — Decisions from constitutional and administrative bodies
• CIRCULAIRE — Administrative circulars and instructions

Filter by Date Range

Restrict results to a specific period using signature date (when the text was signed) and publication date (when it appeared in the JORF).

What data does JORF Scraper extract?

Field	Type	Description
title	String	Full official title of the text
nature	String	Type: LOI, DECRET, ARRETE, ORDONNANCE, AVIS, DECISION, CIRCULAIRE
norNumber	String	NOR identifier (unique administrative reference, e.g., JUSC2421685A)
jorfNumber	String	JORF issue number (e.g., JORF n0194)
publicationDate	String	Date of publication in the Journal Officiel
signatureDate	String	Date the text was signed by the authority
textNumber	String	Position within the JORF issue (e.g., Texte n31)
jorfTextId	String	Unique Legifrance identifier (JORFTEXT...)
fullText	String	Complete body text (optional, can be disabled for metadata-only runs)
signatory	String	Signing authority (minister, president, etc.)
url	String	Direct link to the text on Legifrance
scrapedAt	String	ISO timestamp of extraction

Input Parameters

Parameter	Type	Default	Description
Search Keywords	String	—	Search JORF texts by keyword
Text Type (Nature)	Array	All types	Filter by LOI, DECRET, ARRETE, etc.
Date From	String	—	Signature date filter (DD/MM/YYYY)
Date To	String	—	Publication date filter (DD/MM/YYYY)
Include Full Text	Boolean	true	Include complete text body
Max Results	Integer	50	Maximum texts to extract
Proxy Configuration	Object	FR Residential	Proxy settings

Example output

{
    "title": "Decret n 2024-567 du 20 juin 2024 relatif a la transition energetique",
    "nature": "DECRET",
    "norNumber": "TRER2412345D",
    "jorfNumber": "JORF n0145",
    "publicationDate": "21 juin 2024",
    "signatureDate": "20 juin 2024",
    "textNumber": "Texte n12",
    "jorfTextId": "JORFTEXT000049876543",
    "fullText": "Le Premier ministre, Sur le rapport du ministre de la transition energetique...",
    "signatory": "Le Premier ministre",
    "url": "https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/jorf/id/JORFTEXT000049876543",
    "scrapedAt": "2026-05-23T10:00:00.000Z"
}

Use cases

• Legal monitoring — Track new laws and decrees in your sector (environment, labor, finance, health)
• Regulatory compliance — Get notified when regulations change affecting your business
• Legal research — Build a searchable database of French legislation for law firms and academics
• Government affairs — Monitor nominations, appointments, and institutional decisions
• Data journalism — Analyze legislative trends, decree frequency, and policy patterns over time
• Business intelligence — Track government procurement rules, tax changes, and industry regulations

Tips for best results

• Track legislation by sector: Search with domain-specific keywords like "sante publique", "environnement", "numerique", or "finances publiques"
• Monitor nominations: Search for "nomination" or "arrete portant nomination" to track government appointments
• Metadata-only mode: Disable "Include Full Text" for faster runs when you only need titles, dates, and NOR numbers
• Date filtering: Use date ranges to get a specific period's legislation — useful for regulatory audits
• NOR number lookup: Every JORF text has a unique NOR number. Use it to reference specific texts across systems

How much does it cost?

JORF Scraper runs on the Apify platform. You pay only for compute resources used.

Search size	Estimated time	Estimated cost
10 texts	~30 seconds	~$0.01
50 texts	~2 minutes	~$0.05
200 texts	~8 minutes	~$0.20
1,000 texts	~40 minutes	~$0.80

Legifrance is a public government website with no rate limiting. Costs are purely Apify compute. Apify's free tier includes $5 of monthly compute — enough to extract thousands of texts.

Can I integrate?

Yes. Send JORF data directly to your tools:

• Google Sheets — Build a legislative monitoring dashboard updated on schedule
• Slack — Get notified when new laws or decrees matching your keywords are published
• Webhooks — Push to any HTTP endpoint for custom regulatory compliance pipelines
• Email — Receive daily or weekly digests of new JORF publications

Can I use it as an API?

Yes. Call JORF Scraper programmatically:

Python — Monitor new energy decrees

from apify_client import ApifyClient

client = ApifyClient("YOUR_API_TOKEN")

run = client.actor("studio-amba/jorf-scraper").call(run_input={
    "searchQuery": "energie renouvelable",
    "nature": ["DECRET", "LOI"],
    "maxResults": 20,
})

for text in client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"]).iterate_items():
    print(f"{text['nature']} | {text['publicationDate']} | {text['title'][:80]}")

JavaScript — Get latest laws

import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

const client = new ApifyClient({ token: 'YOUR_API_TOKEN' });

const run = await client.actor('studio-amba/jorf-scraper').call({
    searchQuery: 'loi',
    nature: ['LOI'],
    maxResults: 10,
});

const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
items.forEach(t => console.log(`${t.publicationDate} | ${t.norNumber} | ${t.title}`));

FAQ

What is the Journal Officiel (JORF)?

The Journal Officiel de la Republique Francaise is France's official gazette, published daily by DILA. Every law, decree, ordinance, and official government act must be published in the JORF to take legal effect. It has been published continuously since 1868.

What is a NOR number?

NOR (Nomenclature des actes publiees au Journal Officiel) is a unique 12-character identifier assigned to every text published in the JORF. It encodes the issuing ministry, year, and sequence. Example: JUSC2421685A = Justice ministry, 2024, sequence 21685, type A (arrete).

How current is the data?

Texts are published on Legifrance within 24 hours of their official JORF publication. The digital archive goes back to 1990 for most text types.

What about the Legifrance API?

The official Legifrance API (via PISTE) requires OAuth registration. This actor scrapes the public website directly, requiring no registration or API keys. All data is published under Open Licence 2.0 (etalab).

Does this include court decisions?

No. This actor focuses specifically on the JORF (laws, decrees, regulations). Court decisions are published separately in other Legifrance databases (JURI, CETAT, CONSTIT).

Limitations

• Historical texts before June 2004 may lack HTML versions and have limited content extraction
• Very long texts (e.g., full budget laws) may have truncated full text
• The NOR number is not available for all texts (some older texts lack it)
• Date formats are in French (e.g., "15 aout 2024") — parse accordingly

Other French government scrapers

Working with French public data? Combine with these tools:

• French Company Enrichment — SIREN/SIRET company lookup
• BOAMP Scraper — French public procurement announcements
• BODACC Scraper — French business legal announcements

Your feedback

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