French president François Hollande said on 17 May that he may legislate to make shareholder votes on executive pay binding company boards continue to ignore shareholders’ recommendations. “I’ve been told there is a code of good conduct. If it’s not applied there will be consequences,” Hollande said on Europe 1 radio. “If this council does not react firmly, the first decision will be to make general (shareholder) assembly decisions binding.” Prime Minister Manuel Valls said on 19 May that companies should be forced to abide by votes on pay. “We’ve tried asking companies to show responsibility,” Valls said on RTL radio. “It’s clear that this hasn’t been heeded, so now we must legislate.”
The next day, 20 May, the two French business associations responsible for the code of corporate governance in France, AFEP and MEDEF, announced a revision to the code that took into account the work of the Haut Comité de Gouvernement d’Entreprise (HCGE). The HCGE has been in place for three years and has oversight of the application of the governance code’s recommendations. AFEP MEDEF said in a press release that HCGE had demonstrated its effectiveness in a number of cases and that it had acted as an advisor to businesses, answering their questions, but had also monitored compliance with the code.
