New lobbying law in France

Since 1 May 2018, France's new lobbying law was fully implemented. Part and parcel of recent legislation on transparency (Sapin II package), it was adopted on 9 December 2016, providing a regulatory framework for lobbying activities and establishing a mandatory national register ('le repertoire') for lobbyists.

In a step-by-step process, first, the repertoire, in which all active interest representatives must sign up, was created on 1 July 2017. After registering by 1 January 2018, interest representatives were then under the obligation to report their lobbying activities in this repertoire by 30 April 2018. The repertoire, with just over 100 registrants to date, was overseen by the 'Haute Autorité pour la Transparence de la Vie Publique' (HATVP).

In France, the cultural acceptance of lobbying as a profession had been slow, and the new law would make a huge difference in terms of making lobbying activities public, with a regulation closely following the Irish example. The Sapin II package aimed for a general increase in public accountability and transparency of the decision-making processes. Some incremental steps in this direction had been taken previously, primarily with the establishment of the HATVP in January 2014 as an independent body to oversee the integrity and transparency of the national public institutions.