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, who has proposed scrapping the European due diligence directive, and from the government, which supports the European Commission’s proposed Omnibus directive. [4]
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 — and to stop its attack on these key texts for the climate, the environment, and human rights. [[Reclaim Finance, The economic, financial, and civil society sectors united against the Omnibus directive, 2025.]