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By Sally Watson, 17 December 2001 00:00

NEWS French taxpayers will be able to submit returns online by 2003 thanks to a three-year deal between the French government and Novell. The E9m (£5m) contract, which will be made public later today, will see Novell provide its directory service software to the French tax authority, the Direction Générale des Impôts (DGI). The system will provide secure access for 35 million French households currently required to submit tax returns in paper form. According to Adrian Humbel, EMEA director of business development at Novell, providing e-government services for citizens can be "a nightmare". "You're faced with millions of people needing one application and millions of people needing another. Novell's solution will provide secure authentication through the web with access to every different kind of application," Humbel told silicon.com. Phase one of the roll out will see the DGI's 100,000 internal users using the system, before the tax authority's partners - including the police force and local authorities - are added to the network. Finally French citizens will be given access sometime in 2003. The XML-based system will map and provide access rights to all the DGI's current applications, including legacy systems, bespoke software and commercial products provided by partners such as Accenture. Humbel said: "We're able to provide access to whatever application is at the backend. You don't have to move or re-write any software. It can be done in a couple of days." Speaking last month, CEO of Novell Jack Messman outlined the company's new business strategy, citing authentication and security as its prime target. Messman said: "We are already the leader in creating global, common, authentication and access control. We have a world class foundation in eDirectory." Last month, the firm - better known for its NetWare range of network software - slashed 1,400 jobs.