Every Government Portal in France Uses the Same Authentication: net-entreprises.fr Credentials.
Count the browser tabs open the next time quarterly declarations are due. net-entreprises.fr in one tab — that's your DSN filing (the monthly social security declaration your company submits for every employee). impots.gouv.fr in another — that's TVA (the French equivalent of VAT — your quarterly sales tax declaration). Pôle emploi services in a third — that's the DPAE pre-hiring declaration if you brought on new staff. Three different websites, three separate logins, three sets of receipts to download and manually file. Most French entrepreneurs manage this as three completely separate relationships with three different government agencies.
What most entrepreneurs do not know: those three portals share the same underlying authentication infrastructure. One set of credentials governs all of them. France built this connection in 2000 — 24 years ago. What was missing until now was free software that uses it the way it was designed to be used.
One key, four doors
GIP-MDS is the public body that makes this possible — the government organization created to reduce the administrative burden on French businesses by standardizing how software connects to government portals. Created in 2000, jointly governed by URSSAF, DGFIP (the French tax authority), Pôle emploi, and CPAM (the national health insurance agency), GIP-MDS operates net-entreprises.fr and processes over 25 million DSN declarations per year.
One set of net-entreprises.fr credentials authenticates your business simultaneously to four government agencies: URSSAF for DSN filings and contribution payments (the monthly declarations every employer must submit, due by the 5th or 15th), DGFIP via its EDI service (EDI being the electronic filing format for tax declarations) for TVA and corporate tax filings, Pôle emploi for DPAE filings (the pre-hiring declaration required before any employee's first day — missing one costs €1,068 per undeclared employee), and CPAM for health coverage enrollments when new employees join.
All four are legally mandatory at different points of the employment lifecycle. All four use the same authentication layer. The technical standard GIP-MDS uses for programmatic access is the same protocol behind "sign in with Google" on any website — documented publicly in their developer portal, readable by any developer who looks for it. The authentication architecture was designed for integration from the start; the consumer experience just never reflected that.
Every large French corporation with a dedicated payroll team already uses this. Their software connects to government portals automatically — because the volume makes manual portal navigation impossible. A two-person SARL has access to the exact same connections. The technical capability is identical regardless of company size. The only asymmetry was the software layer: large companies had systems connecting to the portals; small businesses had to navigate them manually. Liberté corrects that asymmetry, for free.
What software has been charging for
"Portal integration" — the feature tier that advertises full government portal access — typically adds €20-50 per month to French accounting software subscriptions. Across millions of French businesses, annual revenue from connecting businesses to public authentication infrastructure runs into hundreds of millions of euros.
None of that value creation requires proprietary technology. GIP-MDS's documentation is public. The developer guide sits on the same website your accountant uses to file your DSN. Accounting software that charges for "multi-portal integration" is charging for a connection that uses the same net-entreprises.fr authentication as every other certified tool in the market. There is no unique technical work behind the premium.
Public money funded GIP-MDS specifically to reduce administrative burden on French businesses. That public investment in free authentication infrastructure ended up underwriting the cost structure of paid software. French entrepreneurs paid twice: once through the social contributions that funded the public infrastructure, and again through monthly subscription fees to access it.
Positioning "portal connection" as a premium feature implies that software without it is somehow incomplete for basic compliance. In practice, every certified accounting tool in France must connect to government portals to file mandatory declarations — it is the minimum requirement to be a legitimate compliance tool, not a differentiator. Liberté includes it as a default because there is no honest way to offer business compliance software without it.
What automation actually looks like
An employer with 5 employees makes roughly 12 DSN filings, 4 URSSAF contribution declarations, 4 TVA submissions, and 2-5 DPAE filings per year. Managed separately, that is approximately 22-25 portal sessions annually — each requiring login, navigation, data entry, submission, and receipt download. Add data cross-referencing and tracking down receipts when an auditor requests proof: the realistic time cost is in the range of 15-20 hours per year on portal navigation alone, for a business of that size.
Each additional employee compounds the volume: declaration records grow across multiple portals. At ten employees, manual portal management becomes a part-time administrative task. The value of unified authentication grows with every hire — a 10-person business saves the equivalent of a part-time admin day each month compared to manual portal sessions.
Setting up Liberté takes under 30 minutes. Credentials entered once, all four authentication doors stay open simultaneously. Mandatory filings go out automatically when the data exists to trigger them.
Adding a new employee shows this most clearly. You add the employee in Liberté. That single action triggers the DPAE filed to Pôle emploi before their first day (avoiding the €1,068 fine), CPAM health enrollment, payroll configuration, and DSN inclusion for the following month. Four agencies receive what they legally require. All via the same authentication gateway. No government websites opened. No receipts manually downloaded. You hired someone; the compliance happened.
A deadline that repeats
France has progressively closed manual filing options for business declarations: DSN replaced multiple paper forms in 2017, e-invoicing becomes mandatory starting 2026, and additional digitization requirements continue through 2027. Each new mandatory digital requirement needs a connected platform using government portals. Businesses that establish authenticated access through Liberté now are prepared for each expansion as it arrives — GIP-MDS's authentication architecture has been stable for 24 years, and it is not changing as the government adds to it.
Quarter-end periods — when DSN, TVA, and URSSAF contributions converge in the same week — are where manual portal management creates the most financial exposure. Each deadline is a separate portal session. One missed login, one government system outage on a filing date, one deadline that slipped during a busy week: penalties start at €1,068 for DPAE failures and reach a €5,000 minimum for failing to produce your FEC accounting file (the standardized financial record tax authorities can request with 15 days' notice). Liberté files declarations as soon as payroll data is complete, not the day before the deadline when a human remembers to log in.
One authentication. All your compliance.
You have one set of French government business credentials. They work on URSSAF, DGFIP, Pôle emploi, and CPAM. Liberté uses them once to automate all four. France built the integration in 2000. Nobody built the free tool to use it until now.
After a 30-minute setup, your DSN files itself. Your DPAE fires automatically when you add an employee. Your TVA goes on schedule without anyone logging into a portal. Your accountant enters credentials once during onboarding; after that, filings happen in the background while they focus on advice instead of portal navigation. The browser tab situation at quarter-end — three portals, three logins, three Friday afternoons — becomes a receipt confirmation in your inbox.
Free. No subscription, no feature tiers, no portal integration premium. The authentication infrastructure the French government built for your business — Liberté connects to it on your behalf and passes none of the cost on to you. Because there is not one.