It was previously considered to be in the public domain because it is a scan (or similar) by the Bibliotheque Nationale de France, but not everything scanned by the BNF is automatically in the public domain.
It is possible that this file is in the public domain for other reasons, for example because it was published a long time ago (anything before ca. 1900 is most likely ok) or because its author / artist / photographer died over 70 years ago and it was published over 95 years ago. In such cases, a new rationale should be applied, and a different license tag (see
Commons:Licensing and valid license tags at
Commons:Copyright tags) should be used.
If the file is not found to be in the public domain, it might be nominated for deletion (NOT by any automatic process, but manually).
See below for the previous rationale (not applicable anymore).
Previous public domain rationale, no longer applicable
Public domain works must be out of copyright in both the country of origin and the United States, and must be accompanied one or more valid
copyright tags to indicate its status. Absence of such tags may result in a file's deletion.
Public domain works must be out of copyright in both the United States and in the source country of the work in order to be hosted on the Commons. If the work is not a U.S. work, the file must have an additional
copyright tag indicating the copyright status in the source country. Note: This tag should not be used for sound recordings.PD-1923Public domain in the United States//commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Reuter,_Paul_Julius_von,_Nadar,_Gallica.jpg
This is a retouched picture, which means that it has been digitally altered from its original version. Modifications: Crop, size. Cleaning of dust, dirt, spots tears and scratches due to age. Correction of levels (saturation, contrast). With GIMP.
Licensing
I, the copyright holder of this work, hereby publish it under the following license:
The person who associated a work with this deed has dedicated the work to the
public domain by waiving all of their rights to the work worldwide under copyright law, including all related and neighboring rights, to the extent allowed by law. You can copy, modify, distribute and perform the work, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission.
http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/deed.enCC0Creative Commons Zero, Public Domain Dedicationfalsefalse
This image has been assessed under the valued image criteria and is considered the most valued image on Commons within the scope: Paul Reuter, portrait photograph. You can see its nomination
here.