To supplement the monitoring of antibiotic resistance in France, the French Institute for Public Health Surveillance (InVS) established in 2000 a network of 69 private outpatient medical testing laboratories (LABM) located throughout mainland France: the Labville network. An automated transfer of printed bacteriology results—detected via print stream recognition and sent daily and securely to the InVS—was tested. The varying print formats across LABMs, their equipment (printers), and the type of results required specific data extraction rules for each. The data received in structured plain text were unencoded. Between 2006 and 2009, 44 LABMs transmitted data. The indicators produced were consistent with the literature: 20.9% of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus and 2.2% of third-generation cephalosporin-resistant Escherichia coli. However, the instability of the print formats regularly invalidated all or part of the data retrieval. Of the 36 functional LABMs in April 2009, 29 had experienced at least one interruption in data reception, requiring monitoring of the connected LABMs and constant adjustments to data extraction or transcoding rules, leading to the termination of the pilot project in November 2009. Monitoring of RATB in the city remains crucial for the community, particularly with the growing spread of BLSE Escherichia coli strains. Pragmatic alternative solutions must be explored: conducting targeted, repeatable ad hoc studies and encouraging the relevant National Reference Centers (NRCs) to collect data on the origin of strains to produce city-specific indicators. Collaboration with existing LABM networks and with the NRCs would facilitate the development of these two approaches. (R.A.)