Although the trialogue negotiations concluded in December, the compromise was scheduled to be voted on by the Council, but the vote was postponed in recent weeks due to Germany withdrawing its support.

Unfortunately, in yet another twist of fate on February 27, France further jeopardised the text’s adoption by demanding that the scope of the directive be changed to exclude more than 80% of the companies concerned, a demand first made by Bruno Le Maire himself during a secret trip to Brussels. On February 20, he requested a one-to-one meeting with the Belgian Minister for Economic Affairs, whose country currently holds the Council Presidency, and made his first request to revise the scope thresholds. According to several sources, this request became France’s official position last night.

Inspired by the 2017 French law on the duty of vigilance, this directive would require large companies operating in the European market to prevent human rights violations and environmental pollution in their value chains.

The compromise text would apply to companies with more than 500 employees, but France demanded at the last minute that this threshold be raised to the level of the French law on the duty of vigilance, which is already in force and set at 5,000 employees, thus exempting approximately 14,000 companies operating in Europe. The level of the thresholds in France was nevertheless considered too high by a Parliamentary report on the evaluation of the French law, which recommended lowering them, as well as by an information report from the National Assembly’s Foreign Affairs Committee co-authored by a member of the presidential majority.

It should also be noted that this French U-turn completely contradicts all of the demands made by civil society, trade unions, associations, countless company representatives and investors, financial authorities, religious authorities, and numerous international bodies.

NGOs working on the file are calling for the maintenance of the threshold that European countries have agreed to, and which France has recently pledged to support politically at a hearing of the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Stéphane Séjourné, at the National Assembly on February 14.

We urge the President of the Republic, Emmanuel Macron, to defend France’s historic position in these negotiations, which are crucial for the protection of human rights and the environment, by assuring his European partners that France will maintain continuous support so that this directive can be adopted.