The Reform of the French Standard-Setting System: Its Peculiarities, Limits and Political Context

This paper analyses the 2007 reform of the Conseil National de la Comptabilité (and the creation of the Autorité des Normes Comptables -- ANC) from the perspective of the social and historical context since its birth, and studies the political context and its limits. It shows that the original concept of standard-setting in the French way has been profoundly modified. The notion of a representative decision-making body has been retained, but the collegial decision-making has been restricted and the number of interested participants reduced. Carried out under the pervasive influence of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS), the reform marks the power of the large companies and the ‘Big Four’ audit firms, whose employees play a large part in the process for developing standards. It also reflects a redefinition of the role of the state, although that stops short of complete disengagement. The state retains oversight of the standard-setting apparatus. The public authorities expect that the new organisation will have a greater capacity to react and to influence the global accounting debates that shape the evolution of IFRS. The paper asks the question whether France has sufficient human and financial resources to achieve such an objective, which presupposes a significant increase in accounting research.