On 18 June France’s Council of Ministers adopted the draft law " an action plan for corporate growth and transformation" (Pacte). The text, which according to the Government, ‘seeks to give companies the means to innovate, to transform, to grow and to create jobs,’ contains a wealth of different provisions affecting the world of work (social threshold calculations, promoting profit sharing within SMEs, and augmenting the number of employee company board-members). The text also seeks to include social and environmental considerations in company management decisions.
This draft text addresses a very large number of topics including the modification of articles 1833 and 1835 of the Civil Code which seek to redefine the notion of ‘company social interest’ (i.e. the. interest of the company in its own right which is not equivalent to that of its shareholders) so that social and environmental issues are taken into account and which will probably spark much debate. At the end of 2017 the government opened a period of reflection on company social usefulness...
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