Draft law on the action plan for the growth and transformation of enterprises (PACTE) is to be put before the lower house of the French Parliament in September.

The draft provisions include measures to reduce restrictions on small and medium size business. Setting up new companies will be simplified in order to reduce costs and speed up the formation process. Currently companies are registered on each local company and commercial register where they have their registered office and branches. There are currently circa 1400 business formalities centres in France. Under the new proposal a single online service will be put in place to manage the registration of new companies.

Moreover, the draft law will empower the Government to issue Orders with a view to creating a single national register of companies which will be fully digital. The proposal will also considerably reduce administrative formalities in which the same information sometimes had to be reproduced with each local company and commercial register.

The draft law also envisages raising the thresholds above which external auditors need to be appointed. The French requirements would be aligned with the European thresholds; the proposal would reduce thus audit costs for smaller companies.