Completely agree with the "let's see what they'll do with our data" philosophy!
The three stated objectives of France's open data policy are:
1. to make government more transparent and accountable,
2. to improve public policies and public service delivery, and
3. to enable entrepreneurs and civic innovators to develop create new services based on this data.
That's why we've brought together more than 30 key players in the French innovation ecosystem (VCs, angels, research institutions but also media, larger French corporations, Google, Microsoft etc.) and organized a series data-driven startup contests called DataConnexions.
You can check the best projects from the first 3 editions (from early 2012 onwards): http://www.etalab.gouv.fr/recherche/?query=dataconnexions
My personal favorite is an app developed jointly with the Greater Paris transport authority that uses context-based modeling to predict train occupancy levels at each time of the day, in real-time, taking into account any perturbation on the network and live feedback from users: http://tranquilien.com
