By amending the “Sapin II” law, France has become the fourth EU country to transpose the EU Whistleblower Directive as of 21 March 2022, following Denmark, Sweden and Portugal.
Sapin II introduced, in December 2016, mandatory whistleblowing schemes (amongst other things) for certain private and public sector organisations.
On 21 March 2022, France enacted a law “aiming to improve the protection of whistleblowers” by making numerous amendments to the Sapin II Law, as well as to the labor code, the public service code, the criminal code and other laws.
Consistent with the previous version of the Sapin II Law, the new law is not restricted to breaches of EU law, as provided for in the EU Whistleblower Directive, but also applies to breaches of French law or a threat or prejudice to the general interest.
The law does not apply in cases where French or EU law establishes specific reporting regulations (notably as set out under Part II of the Annex to the EU Whistleblower Directive, covering EU law in the fields of financial services, AML-FCT, transport and environment).
Moreover, the new law expands the type of information that falls outside its scope to include information protected by the secrecy of judicial deliberations and judicial investigations, in addition to information protected by national defense secrecy, medical secrecy, and lawyers’ professional secrecy.
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