Hello,
Last week-end there was the first round of the French presidential election. People from Wikimedia France have been working hard to attend meetings of the candidates to take plenty of photos of them and other politicians or artists supporting them. Wikimedia France has even issued a press release : http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/CP_Couverture_%C3%A9lection and < http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:French_presidential_election_%282... (browse the subcategories).
To get an official press card in France, more than 50% of your total income must come from your activities as a journalist or photographer < http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carte_de_presse_en_France%3E. Photographers and reporters from Wikimedia projects can obviously not get this precious pass. Though, an accreditation letter from an institution (along with a professional camera and a big amount of self-confidency) can be enough.
I know the English-language Wikinews provides such accreditations for reporters. The French-language one doesn't. We have been forced to contact each party and request temporary press passes for each meeting. Although we are very proud of what we have accomplished, it would be great if we had some accreditation letters as photographers. Should they come from Wikinews? Commons? Dunno.
Browsing through the archives of Wikinews Water cooler, I have found this discussion : http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Wikinews:Water_cooler/policy/Archive/15#Accredit...
Has there been any follow-up about this issue? If not, could we work on it?