FRANCE TO TIGHTEN RULES FOR INTEREST REPRESENTATIVES

Based on a report of the National Assembly of February 2013, several measures are being proposed. They include the following:

1. Reinforce the obligations of declarations for interest representatives;
2. Anyone may register on the Register of Interest Representatives, provided all requested information have been duly supplied;
3. Make public the information furnished by the interest representatives at time of registration;
4. Review the conditions of access to the National Assembly by providing upon presentation of a specific card a badge valid for one day and the reason for entry;
5. Some areas of the National Assembly to become off limits for interest representatives;
6. Include in the Rules of the National Assembly the obligation to publish the list of hearings and the name of the person heard by the Deputy in parliamentary reports as well as an explicit reason when no hearing has taken place;
7. Distinguish in the list of hearings the interest representatives whose names appear in the register and as a result respect the code of conduct;
8. Study the possible implementation of alerts for interest representatives whose names appear in the register, as long as they have declared their interest in a particular area;
9. Study the possibility to put on line the contribution of interest representatives on a draft bill, only for those that are registered;
10. Invite the Deputies to make public their meetings with interest representatives in the rooms of the National Assembly by providing their names and subjects of the meeting in the Order Paper;
11. Add to the code of conduct of interest representatives the banning of colloquia in the National Assembly when participation is subject to financial contribution;
12. Make it compulsory for public relations firms to have their client in attendance when meeting with a Deputy;
13. Limit the granting of badges to volunteer workers;
14. Entrust the Compliance Officer with the task to implement a code of ethics for assistant parliamentarians and civil servants;
15. Consider if the practice of law is suitable at the same time as being a parliamentarian

Not allmeasures may be adopted but nevertheless they signal the strong French commitment to make interest representation more transparent.