The impact of open archives on the availability and selection of scientific and technical information is growing. Yet, there is little empirical evidence on the deposit and processing of grey literature in digital repositories. The purpose of this communication is to provide a survey on grey literature in French open archives, e.g. institutional and subject-based digital repositories. The survey is based on a selection of 56 representative French digital repositories. The different archives are selected through national and international registries of OAI repositories, following a defined set of criteria. The repositories are shortly described (type of repository, scientific domain, software, size, language, institution). Five aspects are analysed for each digital repository: 1. Typology of grey documents (in particular, theses and dissertations, reports, conference proceedings, working papers, courseware). 2. Part of grey literature in the whole archive (in %). 3. Specific metadata related to grey literature. 4. Quality control and policies (evaluation, validation). 5. Conditions of access to the full text. These information and data are linked to the characteristics of the repositories mentioned above, and specific features of grey literature are discussed. Furthermore, the question if the New York definition of grey literature applies to the content of digital repositories is discussed. The communication provides an overview of the preservation and dissemination of grey literature in French digital repositories, contributes to the discovery of French grey literature and open archives, and moves forward the debate on the future of grey literature in the environment of digital repositories.