Konrad Eckenschwiller, Permanent Representative of the GC in France, is Délégué général

Network Participants

The Global Compact Network in France has approximately 400 active participants. In 2006, membership grew from 413 to 426 participants, despite the exclusion of 47 enterprises from the network for failure to submit a best practice or Communication on Progress (COP) after four separate warnings. In 2007, 25 new members have already joined.

Network members represent many different industry categories and are geographically spread across many provinces, however the majority are SMEs (71% have less than 2,000 employees; 55% less than 500 employees and 2% are academics and NGOs). This situation has immediate and important consequences in the management and activities of the network.

Network Activities

Most participants need specific assistance regarding writing best practices or COPs. For example, the association has, on an average, one personal dialogue every working day of the year with an SME to explain the GC principles and contribute to the writing and implementation of the yearly COP. As far as multinational enterprises are concerned, they often engage in the network in order to exchange experiences on writing COPs and how to be more proactive in the promotion of the GC with their different stakeholders.

One afternoon per month is dedicated to members, in the form of individual meetings, to dialogue with the network association on any GC-related issues. The high demand will probably lead to a second afternoon per month in 2007. In 2005, the French network noticed that large meetings of participants often were not meeting the needs of the companies. Therefore, such meetings were no longer held and were replaced by one-to-one exchanges between the network association and individual enterprises. For example, in the last quarter of 2006, 23 entrepreneurs were individually assisted in their best practice/COP development. This approach has proven more efficient, both in terms of quality of the dialogue and quantity of GC-related communications. The steering committee of the French network association has agreed that priority must be given to such practical actions.

Network Governance

The French network became a legal association in May 2005 with its own statutes and regulations, in accordance with the integrity measures of the GC. A member of the association must first be a Global Compact member. In the future, it is hoped that each French GC member will be a member of the French association. The more members in the association, the more efficient it will be.

The association is led by a steering committee, composed of 15 chairmen (7 multinationals, 7 SMEs, 1 public agency). At the working level, committee members or their personal representatives met five times in 2006. The steering committee is open to non-entrepreneurs, and a high-level representation of academics will join the steering committee in March 2007. Konrad Eckenschwiller, Permanent Representative of the GC in France, serves as Délégué général.

Annual General Assembly: 13 March 2007

The GC French association held its annual general assembly on 13 March 2007. The chairman of the association, Bertrand Collomb of Lafarge, drew the attention of the enterprises that are running the risk of being excluded in the first half of 2007 for non-compliance with the COP commitment. The chairman insisted that quality comes ahead of quantity and stressed the network’s individual coaching, which will now be offered twice a month. The roundtable of the general assembly focused on the subject of a company’s relationships and responsibilities with sub-contractors. The roundtable started with a presentation by Jean Kaspar, well known consultant in labour relations, and was followed by Patricia Laurent, deputy editor of L’Usine Nouvelle. The members of the panel were: the chairmen of Carrefour, Lafarge, Schneider Electric and Armor Lux (a textile SME from Brittany) and the Secretary General of the leading French trade union (CFDT). The French Minister for Labor Relations, Gérard Larcher, concluded the session with a speech on the interdependence between businesses, labour forces and international development.

For more information on the Global Compact’s French network, please email: pacte-mondial@idep.net