Publications

Higher education institutions play a special role in the ecological transition. Representing almost half of all State operators and catering for a large number of people, they have a substantial environmental impact. Numerous initiatives have been taken in recent years, and policies are beginning to...

Since 1981, seven Business Formalities Centres (Centres de Formalités des Entreprises, CFE) networks have enabled businesses to complete the formalities involved in setting up, changing their situation and ceasing trading. With a view to simplification, the PACTE law provides for the introduction of...

Housing taxation is a complex mix of taxes and tax incentives, inherited from a long history and incomplete integration into public housing policy. Representing revenue of around €92 billion in 2022, or around 3.5% of gross domestic product (GDP) according to the definition used in this report, it i...

The Court of Accounts was asked by the National Assembly’s Public Policy Evaluation and Audit Committee to investigate the State’s policy for managing the 192,000 buildings in its stock. This report comprises three sections, devoted respectively to a description of this very large and highly diversi...

Identity checks are a central part of police and “gendarmerie” practice. The Defender of Rights referred the matter to the Court of Accounts, asking it to undertake an investigation of the conditions under which identity checks are carried out - a subject that is regularly questioned in public debat...

In 2022, the Court of Accounts held its first public consultation to gather proposals for investigations to enrich its work programme. Following nearly 9,000 registrations and 333 online contributions, six topics were investigated in 2023. The detection of personal tax fraud is the fourth citizen-dr...

In France, the public service is made up of all permanent and contract staff working in one of three branches: the State public service (FPE), the local public service (FPT) and the  hospital public service (FPH). Since the overhaul of the general framework between 1983 and 1986, a number of legisla...

In his general policy speech on 15 July 2020, the Prime Minister called for the introduction “in the regions, of local judges to deal with everyday incivilities”. Since the usual procedures for recruiting and training judicial staff did not make it possible to respond to this decision in a short spa...

While France has recently adopted a possible warming scenario of around 2°C by 2050, in that same year the country could have 7.2 million inhabitants aged between 75 and 84, i.e. 75% more than today. As such, the objective of “living better at home”, in addition to efforts to combat global warming, ...

In the first part of its annual report on local government finances, published on 4 July this year, the Court of Accounts showed that local authorities as a whole were in a very favourable financial position in 2022, as they had been the previous year. In this second report, the Court points out tha...