Publications

Historically, policing has always been one of the most ancient powers of mayors, and Central Government has only gradually emerged as the guarantor of security for citizens. Organisation of public security authorities was introduced through legislation dated 6th April 1884, which shared policing pow...

The health crisis has led to an unprecedented widening in the social security deficit, resulting from a fall in revenue and an increase in expenditure in response to the emergency. The result has been a considerable increase in social debt. In order to safeguard the social security system over the l...

The Cour des comptes and the regional chambers of accounts of Occitania conducted a survey of 26 medium-sized cities in Occitania and their intermunicipal authority for cooperation between local authorities (EPCI). These regions, which are home to 1.8 million people, i.e. 31% of the region's populat...

In April 2019, the French national audit office, Cour des comptes announced that it would control troughout the whole rebuilding process, the fund-raising and use of donations made to the rebuildind of Notre Dame Cathedral, and would publish control reports on a regular basis. Among others, the firs...

The Directorate-General of Customs and Indirect Taxes (DGDDI) mobilises 17,000 officers, deployed on 674 installations. Facing changes in the Customs environment, it has displayed an ability to adapt, but remains confronted with a need for transformation and modernisation of its competences and its ...

The employment of a significant number of contract civil servants is now a major feature of public employment in France. However, their role in central government, local authority and public hospital services is still very poorly defined.

Overseas départements and regions (DROMs) face specific constraints in terms of housing: building land is scarce and expensive due to their geography, construction costs are higher than in mainland France and rapid and heterogeneous demographic changes make planning more complex.

Large redundancy plans, and more broadly all redundancies for economic reasons, are usually a by-product of economic crises and have become a less frequent form of employment adjustment in recent years , even if some of these plans have remained highly publicised. In the face of accelerated changes ...

In 2019 the Cour des comptes audited the management of the National Employment Agency for the 2012-2018 period. This public administrative establishment, created at the end of 2008 through the merger of the ANPE and Assédic, is responsible for receiving, informing, guiding, supporting and compensati...

The European pressurized water reactor (EPR) project was the result of a French-German partnership entered into in 1989. Germany withdrew from that agreement in 1998. After 2001, the recently set-up Areva group developed a “turnkey” EPR sales strategy to compete with EDF which saw itself as the fron...