According to a new poll, more than 80% of French people want multinational companies to be required to prevent their social, environmental and climate impacts, as well as those of their subcontractors. This result comes shortly after Emmanuel Macron’s proposal to abolish EU-level due diligence requirements for companies. FIDH and its civil society partners call on the French government to take its citizens’ views into account and defend the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD) and the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD).
Paris, 4 June 2025. According to the OpinionWay survey for Reclaim Finance and the Citizens’ Forum for Economic Justice (1)(2):
– 8 out of 10 French citizens (81%) think multinational corporations should be held accountable for their social, environmental, and climate impacts, and for those of their partners and subcontractors.
– 86% believe that companies should be regulated to make them more transparent and to ensure they prevent such impacts, even if it entails additional costs for their business.
– 90% want multinationals to actively contribute to the fight against climate change and be required to adopt and implement transition plans aligned with the target of limiting global warming to +1.5°C. (3)
These findings confirm that the French public strongly supports ambitious regulation to ensure corporate transparency and accountability in terms of human rights, environmental protection, and climate action. Yet these regulations are currently at risk from the French President (4), who has proposed scrapping the European due diligence directive, and from the government, which supports the European Commission’s proposed “Omnibus” directive.
The Omnibus proposal seeks to roll back both the CSRD and the CSDDD, notably reducing by 80% the number of companies required to disclose social and environmental information and undermining the implementation of climate transition plans. (5) The Council of the European Union is expected to take a position on the proposal before the end of June.
Reclaim Finance and the Citizens’ Forum for Economic Justice member organizations are calling on the French government to heed the concerns of the French public — concerns also shared by many companies, economists, and financial actors (6) — and to stop its attack on these key texts for the climate, the environment, and human rights.
Notes
(1) The Citizens’ Forum for Economic Justice is a platform for expertise, public engagement, and advocacy on issues related to the regulation of economic actors. Its members include: ActionAid France, Alternatives Économiques, Les Amis de la Terre, Amnesty International France, Bloom, CCFD-Terre Solidaire, the French Center for Corporate Information (CFIE), le Collectif Éthique sur l’étiquette, the French Democratic Confederation of Labour (CFDT), the General Confederation of Labour (CGT), Greenpeace France, the Human Rights League (LDH), Notre Affaire à Tous, Sherpa, and Oxfam France.
(2) OpinionWay poll for Reclaim Finance and the Citizens’ Forum for Economic Justice (June 2025). Survey conducted among 1,018 people, representative of the French population aged 18 and over. The sample was assembled using the quota method, based on gender, age, socio-professional category, type of urban area, and region of residence.
(3) The results also show that support for regulating multinationals is a cross-party consensus. Supporters of both left-wing parties and the president’s party are overwhelmingly in favor. But this is also true for a large majority of supporters from traditionally pro-deregulation parties and proponents of the “Omnibus” directive, such as Les Républicains and Rassemblement National.
(4) Emmanuel Macron, who had previously advocated for the implementation of a European due diligence directive, announced on 19 May his intention to eliminate "numerous constraints and regulations" affecting businesses, specifically targeting the CSDDD, which is already under review.
(5) Position paper from the Citizens’ Forum for Economic Justice and FIDH.
(6) Reclaim Finance, The economic, financial, and civil society sectors united against the Omnibus directive, 2025.
