Epidemiological surveillance of blood donors began in France in 1985 with the introduction of mandatory HIV screening for blood donations. The purpose of this report is to present all the data from this surveillance between 1992—the year the system was similar to the current one—and 2002. These data make it possible to assess trends among blood donors regarding the frequency and characteristics of the main blood-borne infections (HBV, HCV, HIV, and HTLV), to indirectly evaluate donor recruitment and selection practices, and finally to monitor changes in the residual risk of transmission of these viral infections through transfusion of labile blood products. The decline in the number of donors and, in parallel, the number of donations over the past decade, changes in the geodemographic characteristics of donors, the low prevalence and incidence rates of HBV, HCV, and HIV compared to those observed in the general population, and their decline between 1992 and 2002 are all indicators of donor selection as well as its improvement over the study period. Although data from blood donor surveillance, due to selection bias, cannot be extrapolated to the general population, it is noteworthy that the epidemiological characteristics observed among donors positive for HBV, HCV, and HIV, as well as trends in the prevalence and incidence of these viruses, also reflect the epidemiology of these infections in the general population. Thanks to the constant improvement in donor screening and advances in the development of increasingly effective screening reagents, blood products now pose a very low viral risk. In 2002, the residual risk was estimated at 1 in 400,000 donations for HBV, 1 in 2,500,000 for HIV, 1 in 6,650,000 for HCV, and is close to zero for HTLV. The results of the DGV for HIV-1 and HCV, observed between July 1, 2001, and June 30, 2003, confirm the validity of the residual risk estimates, even though for HCV the observed benefit of the DGV currently appears to be lower than expected. Furthermore, these results demonstrate the limited benefit of the DGV due to the low residual risk at the time of its implementation. (R.A.)