The Penal Code of France (in French) criminalizes active and passive bribery of national and foreign officials, with the punishment for bribery reaching 10 years’ imprisonment and a fine of up to EUR 150,000 for individuals and EUR 750,000 for legal entities. The Penal Code also criminalizes facilitation payments, giving and receiving gifts to influence officials, influence peddling, money laundering, extortion and abuse of office. Government officials are required to declare their assets upon taking and leaving office (HRR 2016). The French government has been criticized for the low numbers of convictions in transnational bribery committed by French companies abroad. Since signing the OECD convention in 2000, France has only prosecuted four foreign bribery cases – three of which were minor with fines of less than EUR 10,000 – compared to the seventy prosecutions in Germany (Metis, Feb. 2015). In an effort to strengthen anti-corruption efforts, the Sapin II law (in French), addressing transparency, anti-corruption and economic modernization, entered into force in July 2017. The law criminalizes bribery of foreign officials by any entity having at least 500 employees and a turnover of more than EUR 100 million or belonging to a group or parent company of this size with headquarters in France. The Law removes the dual criminality requirements and imposes on companies the implementation of internal controls and risk mapping among other requirements. Companies are also required to implement a whistleblower hotline (Lexology, Aug. 2017). France is a signatory to several anti-corruption conventions, including the UNCAC, the OECD Anti-Bribery Convention, the Council of Europe Criminal Law Convention on Corruption, the Council of Europe Civil Law Convention on Corruption and is a member of the Council of Europe Group of States against Corruption (GRECO).
Former presidential candidate and leader of the Front National political party, Marine Le Pen, stands accused of illegally using funds from the European Parliament to pay for her staff based in France (The Guardian, Jun. 2017). In addition, former presidential candidate François Fillon was also accused of using parliamentary funds for paying his wife and two children for jobs that did not exist (FT, Mar. 2017).