The instrumentalization of corporate social responsibility in French law

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) and the legal system can maintain a relationship based on complementarity, with the law being a necessary complement to CSR, but CSR instruments can also be a useful relay for the law. For some time now, CSR has been integrated into the strategies of public authorities, as a complement or even an alternative to the state standard. The use of CSR by legislators aims to assign certain legal policy objectives to it and confines it to an instrumentalization for a defined purpose, whether practical or political. The polysemy and vague contours of a concept such as CSR allow it to be instrumentalized by assigning it functions that it may not be able to perform. This article proposes to analyze the instrumentalization of CSR at work in French law in two branches of law : company law and labour law. Company law seems, by nature, receptive to CSR practices, whereas labour law is more reticent. Thus, company law leaves a lot of room for the will of the addressees of the norms, for flexible mechanisms of elaboration and implementation of the rules, whereas labour law remains based on the principles of imperative, unavailability of the qualification of the subordinate employment relationship and on a central role of the judge. Sometimes the instrumentalization of CSR satisfies public authorities and economic actors and it is then difficult to mobilise legal resources to counter certain abuses. But limits exist to counteract excessive or even unconstitutional deviations. They are ethical when it appears that the determination of the general interest cannot be left to commercial organizations set up to generate profit. They are also of a legal nature when legislative attempts call into question the division of powers between judges and legislator, legislator and private actors or private actors and judges.