Action 7.1 of the 2009–2013 Cancer Plan called for the establishment of a partnership between the French cancer registry network (Francim), the Biostatistics Department of the Hospices Civils de Lyon, the French Institute for Public Health Surveillance, and the National Cancer Institute, in order to further optimize cancer surveillance and monitoring systems, improve data collection by cancer registries, and thereby better guide cancer control policy. The 2011–2013 partnership is structured around a joint work program, formalized by a framework collaboration agreement. This program is overseen by two steering bodies (the monitoring committee and the steering committee) and an independent scientific council. It comprises 28 actions grouped by theme (access to data sources, methodological developments, routine production of indicators, and the development of partnerships and collaborations). Among the many actions are the reduction of the time required to make registry data available by one and a half years, the publication of incidence (national and regional), mortality, and survival data, as well as the collection of stage-at-diagnosis information and the publication of dashboards on treatment wait times. Registers are thus the only structures capable of assessing the scale of the problem posed by cancers by providing baseline data for their epidemiological surveillance. They make a significant contribution to cancer surveillance, the evaluation of public health policies and initiatives, and research. It is therefore necessary to consider how to ensure the long-term sustainability of these members of the national public health network. (R.A.)