Background information

This instrument was developed during the economic recession in 2009. At that time, 10 commissioners for reindustrialisation were appointed. In July 2012, the commissioners were renamed and their number increased. The measure was confirmed in April 2018 and the commissioners were renamed again.

Attached to both the regional prefects and the DREETS, the Commissioners are the entry points for companies facing economic difficulties.

Content of measure

The Commissioners are at the heart of the system for anticipating and supporting companies in difficulty with fewer than 400 employees. Their scope of intervention focuses primarily on industrial companies with more than 50 employees.

Commissioners carry out an early detection action in order to anticipate as early as possible the fragility of the company and offer them solutions adapted to their needs. In this frame, they have a double mission at local level: 

• to intervene as intermediaries for companies in economic difficulties in order to get them out of the impasse and help them find viable solutions vis-à-vis their creditors (banks, clients, suppliers, etc.);
• to lead a regional committee responsible for monitoring the economic situation of regional businesses in order to take appropriate measures to prevent any difficulties.

They provide personalised support and advice for companies facing economic difficulties and help them find solutions at the local level. In order to make early detection of companies' difficulties more efficient, the Commissioners can now rely on artificial intelligence and a new partnership approach bringing together several public players: they have access to the 'Weak Signals' system. This platform, based on available companies' data from different administrations, allows to detect a risk of failure at 18 months. Experimentations of this new tool started as soon as 2014 in one French region, before the decision to generalise, was passed in 2019.

Use of measure

There are between one and three commissioner(s) per region (23 commissioners in the whole country as of 5 June 2020) appointed by the Minister in charge of the economy on proposal of the regional prefects. They cover all French metropolitan regions.

From July 2012 to December 2018, the number of companies which benefited from this support was 4,028,  and more than 270,000 jobs were maintained. In 2018, the Commissioners supported 2,050 companies (over 75% of which are SMEs and industrial mid-sized businesses with 164 employees on average), with a success rate of over 90%. Automotive industry, construction, agri-food, woodworking, metalworking and electronics sectors were the main benefiting sectors.

An interesting point is that, in 2016, only a minority of companies supported were placed in bankruptcy (338 out of 2,596) which might demonstrate that early warning measures put in place by the Commissioners, in link with relevant local actors, were efficient.

Target groups

Workers	Businesses	Citizens
Does not apply to workers	Applies to all businesses	Does not apply to citizens

Actors and funding

Actors	Funding
National government Local / regional government Public employment service	National funds

Social partners

Social partners' role in designing the measure and form of involvement:

	Trade unions	Employers' organisations
Role	Unknown	Unknown
Form	Not applicable	Not applicable

Social partners' role in the implementation, monitoring and assessment phase:

• Unknown
• Main level of involvement: Unknown

Involvement

Unknown

Views and reactions

Unknown

Sources

• 01 June 2016: Ministre de l'Economie, de l'Industrie et du Numérique (2016), 2015 annual report, Direction Générale des Entreprises (DGE) (www.entreprises.gouv.fr)
• 01 January 2019: Annual activity report 2018 (2019) (www.entreprises.gouv.fr)
• 03 April 2019: Signature de la convention de Signaux faibles de déploiement de (www.entreprises.gouv.fr)
• 18 November 2022: Commissaires aux Restructurations et à la Prévention des difficultés des entreprises webpagee (www.entreprises.gouv.fr)