> Reference on the Défenseur des droits under Loi Waserman: why France designated no single whistleblowing authority, what the institution can and cannot do, the schedule of competent external authorities, the statutory deadlines, and how a report reaches it.

Source: https://ethicsportal.eu/authorities/france-defenseur-des-droits/
Updated: 2026-09-21

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# France's whistleblower authority — Défenseur des droits

The **Défenseur des droits** is the independent constitutional authority that orients whistleblowers, certifies their status and defends them against retaliation under the framework created by **Loi Waserman**.

It is not France's external reporting channel. France is the outlier among the large member states: it designated **no single whistleblowing authority**. Understanding that distinction is the practical point of this page — for the duty to operate an internal channel, the thresholds and the penalties, see [whistleblower law in France](/whistleblower-laws/france/).

## Why France has no single authority

Spain built one body, the AIPI, to run a national external channel. Italy gave the job to ANAC. France did neither.

Instead, **Décret n° 2022-1284 du 3 octobre 2022** publishes a schedule of **competent external authorities**, each receiving reports within its own sector — around twenty-three headings covering financial services, competition, the environment, health, and more. The Défenseur des droits sits alongside that schedule with a different job: it **orients** a whistleblower to the right authority, **certifies** their status, and **protects** them. It does not act as a general-purpose external channel for every subject matter.

The consequence for an employer is concrete. There is no single regulator to name in an internal procedure. The procedure has to point a reporting person at the schedule, and at the Défenseur des droits as the route for anyone who does not know which authority applies.

## What the Défenseur des droits is

| | |
| --- | --- |
| Legal nature | Independent constitutional authority (**art. 71-1 of the Constitution**), created in 2011 |
| Governing statute | **Loi organique n° 2011-333 du 29 mars 2011**, as amended |
| Whistleblower mandate from | **Loi organique n° 2022-400 du 21 mars 2022**, the organic law passed alongside Loi Waserman |
| Current officeholder | **François-Noël Buffet**, since **23 July 2026** (décret du 22 juillet 2026), succeeding Claire Hédon |
| Term | **Six years, neither renewable nor revocable**; the office may not be held alongside any other |
| Deputy for whistleblowers | *Adjoint chargé de l'accompagnement des lanceurs d'alerte* — the post created by art. 2 of the organic law; **listed as awaiting appointment** following the July 2026 change of officeholder |

A whistleblower framework depending on a deputy who is not currently in post is worth knowing before an internal procedure promises a reporting person that support exists.

## What the organic law actually changed

Loi organique n° 2022-400 amended the 2011 statute in four places:

1. **Article 1** — the mission moves from *watching over* the rights of whistleblowers to **informing, advising and defending** them, and those protected within an alert procedure (amending art. 4(5)).
2. **Article 2** — creates the **adjoint chargé de l'accompagnement des lanceurs d'alerte** (art. 11).
3. **Article 3** — inserts **art. 35-1**: any whistleblower within the meaning of Loi n° 2016-1691 may address a report to the Défenseur des droits, which handles it under an **independent and autonomous procedure**, refers it onward where it is not competent, and may issue an **opinion on whistleblower status within six months** of the request.
4. **Article 4** — requires a **biennial report** on the overall functioning of whistleblower protection, presented to the President of the Republic and the presidents of both chambers, built from data supplied by all the competent authorities (art. 36 II).

## The three missions

**Information and orientation.** It answers questions on the rules and directs a reporting person to the authority competent for the subject matter — the function that carries most of the load, given the schedule of authorities.

**An opinion on whistleblower status.** Anyone may ask the Défenseur des droits to confirm that they meet the statutory definition. The opinion is issued **within six months**. It matters because the protections attach to the status, and a person who is unsure whether they qualify is otherwise deciding alone whether to rely on them.

**Protection against retaliation.** The protection covers not only the whistleblower but **facilitators** — the people or bodies who helped them — and third parties connected to the report.

## What it cannot do

This is where French practice most often goes wrong.

- **It does not investigate most alerts.** As an investigating body it retains only its four historic domains: **children's rights, the rights of users of public services, the professional ethics of security personnel, and discrimination.** An alert about, say, accounting fraud or an environmental breach is oriented to the competent authority, not investigated here.
- **It does not resolve the employment dispute or award compensation.** Retaliation claims go to the **Conseil de prud'hommes**. The institution's role is protection and status, not remedy.
- **It does not replace the employer's internal procedure**, and using it is not conditional on having exhausted one — a reporting person may go external from the outset.

## Deadlines for external reporting

The decree's external deadlines are not the same as the internal ones, which is the most common confusion.

| | External authority | Employer's internal procedure |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Acknowledgment of receipt | **7 working days** from receipt | **7 working days** from receipt |
| Feedback to the reporting person | **3 months** from the acknowledgment — or from the expiry of the seven working days where no acknowledgment was sent | **3 months** from the acknowledgment |
| Extension | To **6 months** where the circumstances require further investigation, justified before the three months expire | — |

The acknowledgment may be omitted where the reporting person expressly waived it, or where the authority has reasonable grounds to believe that acknowledging receipt would compromise the confidentiality of their identity.

Where an authority finds a report falls outside its competence, or only partly within it, **art. 10(II) of the decree requires it to forward the report promptly** to the competent external authority or to the Défenseur des droits, preserving confidentiality.

## How a report reaches it

| | |
| --- | --- |
| Telephone | **09 69 39 00 00**, Monday to Friday, 8.30–19.30 |
| Online | [formulaire.defenseurdesdroits.fr](https://formulaire.defenseurdesdroits.fr) |
| Post (free, no stamp) | Défenseur des droits, **Libre réponse 71120, 75342 Paris Cedex 07** |

For postal reports the institution asks for a **double envelope**, the inner one marked **« SIGNALEMENT D'UNE ALERTE »** — the handling route that keeps the report away from ordinary correspondence.

Disclosing elements that identify a whistleblower is punishable by **two years' imprisonment and a €30,000 fine**.

## What the 2026 biennial report found

The second biennial report, *La protection des lanceurs d'alerte en France : un dispositif à l'épreuve de son appropriation*, was published on **28 May 2026** by Claire Hédon and her deputy Cécile Barrois de Sarigny, covering 2024–2025. Three findings bear on how an employer should run an internal procedure:

- **External reporting has grown roughly fivefold.** More than **10,000 reports to external authorities in 2025**, against about **2,000 in 2023**. Requests to the Défenseur des droits itself have multiplied by ten since 2017.
- **Retaliation, not intake, is the recurring failure** — most often in the employment relationship.
- The report presses for **effective financial and psychological support** for whistleblowers, which the framework promises more readily than it delivers.

The first of these is the one to act on. External reporting grows when internal channels are not trusted or not known, and a report that goes straight to a sectoral authority is one the employer learns about from the regulator.

## Official sources

- [Loi organique n° 2022-400 du 21 mars 2022 — role of the Défenseur des droits](https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/jorf/id/JORFTEXT000045388740)
- [Loi n° 2022-401 du 21 mars 2022 (Loi Waserman)](https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/jorf/id/JORFTEXT000045388745)
- [Décret n° 2022-1284 du 3 octobre 2022 — procedures and the list of external authorities](https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/loda/id/JORFTEXT000046357368)
- [Défenseur des droits — orienting and protecting whistleblowers](https://www.defenseurdesdroits.fr/orienter-et-proteger-les-lanceurs-dalerte-180)
- [Défenseur des droits — the institution and its deputies](https://www.defenseurdesdroits.fr/le-defenseur-des-droits-et-ses-adjoints-215)
- [Biennial report, 28 May 2026](https://www.defenseurdesdroits.fr/rapport-bisannuel-la-protection-des-lanceurs-dalerte-en-france-un-dispositif-lepreuve-de-son-1150)