GAB welcomes this Guest Post by Sophie Lemaître, a French lawyer, anticorruption advocate, and creator of the first French-language podcast on corruption & tax evasion. Her 2025 book, Réduire au silence, documenting efforts around the world to intimidate journalists and human rights defenders, was awarded the Renaud Van Ruymbeke Prize, which recognizes works dedicated to the fight against corruption.

In November last year, the French anti-corruption Agency (Agence française anticorruption – AFA) finally published France’s Multi-Year National Plan to Fight Corruption for 2025-2029. The French anti-corruption community had long waited for it: the country had not had any anti-corruption strategy since 2022.

The 2025-2029 national plan is the second of its kind. It is 52 pages long in French (48 pages in English) organized around 4 pillars:

1. Bolstering the fight against bribery and corruption in central government departments
2. Helping local authorities to fight corruption
3. Protecting economic stakeholders against corruption
4. Combating corruption at international level

Priorities I and IV are further divided by objectives, and all four list specific measures to be taken, a total of 36 that include targeting central government, government departments, local authorities, the private sector, and France’s international actions.

The strategy reflects some of the challenges France is facing. It puts strong emphasis on the links between corruption, organized crime, and drug trafficking, the latter the focus of the central government. The plan also includes measures that have been requested for years, the creation of an interministerial committee to prevent and fight corruption, the authorization for the National Commission for Control of Electoral Accounts and Political Finance (CNCCFP) to receive financial intelligence from Tracfin, the French Financial Intelligence Unit, and the appointment of an anticorruption coordinator reporting to the general secretary in each ministry.

The strategy sets a clear direction and, at first glance, appears fit for purpose. However, it suffers from several shortcomings. Transparency International France has even published an alternative strategy with 19 measures to rise to the challenge.

Five weaknesses I have identified: