This volume presents the proceedings of the firstFrench-Soviet workshop on algebraic coding, held in Paris inJuly 1991. The idea for the workshop, born in Leningrad (nowSt. Petersburg) in 1990, was to bring together some of thebest Soviet coding theorists. Scientists from France,Finland, Germany, Israel, Italy, Spain, and the UnitedStates also attended. The papers in the volume fall rather naturally into fourcategories:- Applications of exponential sums- Covering radius- Constructions-Decoding.