Since 2000, Ifremer has been implemented a Fisheries Information System (FIS), in strong collaboration with the DPMA (Direction of fisheries and aquaculture of the French Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries). The FIS aims at building an operational and multidisciplinary monitoring network for scientific purposes, allowing a comprehensive view of fishery systems including their biological, technical, environmental and economical components. The objectives of the FIS are (i) to provide the specifications and methodologies for the collection, storage and processing of fisheries data, with the constant concern to harmonise all these procedures on a national scale, (ii) to improve data management system and access to data for a wide-spread public, and (iii) to produce and distribute relevant datasets, indicators and synthesis, for understanding and evaluation, including bio-economic diagnostics of the fisheries, and assessment of the short and long-term impacts of fisheries management scenario and measures. The FIS covers all the French fisheries, including overseas territories and small-scale fisheries, for which data are often hardly available or missing, whereas two thirds of the French vessels are less than 12 meters long. The challenge was to establish a statistical and an integrated approach supporting bio-ecological and economic issues. To further an integrated analysis of the fishery systems, the wide range kinds of data - including acoustic surveys, biological in-situ observations, environmental observations, as well as fishing statistics (landings and efforts) or economic data - are managed in a single data management system, based on an integrated relational data base with geographical facilities.