From Confusion of Interests to Conflicts of Interests
- By Yves Mény
Translated from the French by Cadenza Academic Translations
Pages 5 to 15
Cite this article
- MÉNY, Yves,
- Mény, Yves.
- Mény, Y.
https://doi.org/10.3917/pouv.147.0005
Cite this article
- Mény, Y.
- Mény, Yves.
- MÉNY, Yves,
https://doi.org/10.3917/pouv.147.0005
Notes
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[1]
This article is dedicated to the memory of Guy Carcassonne, who suddenly passed away on May 26, 2013. Until the eve of his death, Guy led the fight against holding multiple offices, the ultimate and unfortunately still legitimate form of conflicts of interests. On May 13, 2013, Guy testified on this issue before the National Assembly’s Commission of Constitutional Law.
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[2]
Yves Mény, La Corruption de la République (Paris: Fayard, 1992).
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[3]
Quoted by Martin Hirsch, Pour en finir avec les conflits d’intérêts (Paris: Stock, 2010).
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[4]
Pour une nouvelle déontologie de la vie publique (For a new code of ethics in public life), report of the Commission for the Prevention of Conflicts of Interest, presided by Jean-Marc Sauvé, January 26, 2011, available at http://www.ladocumentationfrancaise.fr/rapports-publics/114000051/.
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[5]
Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
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[6]
There are countless articles, analyses, and standpoints on holding multiple offices. I will only refer to Guy Carcassonne’s opinion: “Cumul, une exception française?,” in Les Hommes politiques, ed. Évelyne Pisier and Pierre-Henri Tavoillot (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 2002), 157-64; and “Dix constitutionnalistes répondent à deux questions concernant le cumul des mandats, Revue du Droit Public et de la Science Politique en France et à l’Étranger 6 (1997): 1551-600.
France has long ignored not just the reality but even the very concept of conflict of interests. In the name of the so-called virtues of “synthesis,” it has legitimized and defended the practice of holding multiple positions of power in both the private and public sphere. This practice is one of the many symptoms of the lack of interest of French society, and in particular its elites, in pluralism. As a result, conflicts of interests, when they are taken into account, are considered not so much in terms of prevention and awareness as in terms of punishing a few potentially criminal cases. Gradually, under pressure from the media and public opinion and on account of the internationalization of the debate, the French approach is reluctantly edging closer to historically more advanced Anglo-American practices.