This online effort is part of a larger national educational initiative funded by the Ministry called France Universite Numerique, which will be open to all French universities and will provide France with a state-of-the art site and technology platform.

Over 100 higher education institutions throughout France will participate in the new national MOOC portal. The first twenty courses will be launched at the end of October and will start in January 2014.

"This marks the first time a national education ministry has embraced online learning," said edX President Anant Agarwal. "France's adoption of the edX platform is a testament to the power of online education and the potential of edX's open-source platform."

While powered by edX's open source platform, France's new MOOC portal will be independent, separate, and distinct from edX.org.