The CAC 40 is the benchmark index of the Paris stock market, tracking 40 of the largest and most actively traded shares listed on Euronext Paris. It is weighted by free-float market capitalisation.
France has a longstanding joint-audit system. Companies subject to the French requirement and required to publish consolidated accounts generally appoint at least two independent statutory auditors. The work is divided between the firms, each reviews aspects of the other’s work, and they jointly issue the audit opinion.
The result is that the 40 companies in the CAC 40 generate 74 current statutory-auditor appointments, rather than 40.
The table below identifies those auditors, the first financial year of their current engagements and the latest audit fee identified.
It can be sorted by company, sector, auditor, since and audit fee.
Data checked as of 30 September 2026. Audit fees are shown in euros.
CAC 40 Audit Market Share
France turns 40 companies into 74 audit mandates: thirty-four of the 40 CAC 40 companies currently have two statutory auditors.
France’s audit regulator, the Haute Autorité de l’audit (H2A), has argued that the system can also contribute to greater choice in the audit market, giving companies access to a wider range of audit expertise and strengthening auditor independence.
The six CAC 40 companies with only one auditor are Airbus, ArcelorMittal, Eurofins Scientific, Euronext, Stellantis and STMicroelectronics. They are incorporated outside France and therefore do not simply fall under the French corporate-law model applying to French groups. Airbus, Stellantis, STMicroelectronics and Euronext are Dutch entities, while ArcelorMittal and Eurofins are Luxembourg companies.
The Big Four hold four-fifths of the available audit positions
Because joint audits create more than one mandate per company, the most informative way of measuring CAC 40 market share is to count statutory-auditor appointments, rather than allocating each company to a single “primary” auditor.
PwC has the largest number, with 17 of the 74 current appointments, or 23%.
Deloitte holds 15, or 20.3%, EY 14, or 18.9%, and KPMG 13, or 17.6%.
The remaining 15 appointments, or 20.3%, are held by firms outside the Big Four.
Taken together, the Big Four hold 59 of the 74 appointments, or 79.7%.
There is another way of looking at the same data. Thirty-nine of the 40 companies have at least one Big Four firm among their statutory auditors. Twenty have two Big Four auditors; 13 pair a Big Four firm with a non-Big Four auditor; and six have a single Big Four auditor.
Only Capgemini has no Big Four firm in its current statutory-auditor pairing: it is audited by Forvis Mazars and, from FY2026, Grant Thornton.
So the French system has not displaced the Big Four from the top of the market. What it has done is create significantly more space alongside them.
Forvis Mazars has as many CAC 40 mandates as KPMG
That becomes particularly clear when the “Other” category is unpacked.
Forvis Mazars holds 13 CAC 40 statutory-auditor appointments — exactly the same number as KPMG. Grant Thornton holds a further two.
Forvis Mazars appears on the audits of companies including Bouygues, Capgemini, Carrefour, Crédit Agricole, Danone, Eiffage, EssilorLuxottica, Legrand, LVMH, Renault, Safran, Sanofi and Schneider Electric.
That gives France a very different audit-market structure from countries in which the Big Four collectively hold almost every blue-chip mandate and the next-largest firms have only isolated engagements.
The Haute Autorité de l’audit’s latest market study points in the same direction. At the end of 2024, France’s five largest audit networks accounted for 88% of audit fees from public-interest entities, but the regulator said there was no overwhelming predominance by any one of the five. It also specifically identified joint audit as one of the mechanisms contributing to diversity in the French market.
Across the entire French statutory-audit market, rather than just public-interest entities, the five largest networks accounted for only 54% of fees in 2024. The H2A described the overall market as remaining widely open, with a large number of participants.
The CAC 40 therefore illustrates an unusual combination: the Big Four are present at virtually every major French company, but they do not have the market entirely to themselves.
Joint audit also changes how auditor rotation works
France’s two-auditor structure interacts with the European Union’s mandatory auditor-rotation regime.
Under the EU Audit Regulation, the basic maximum engagement period for the auditor of a public-interest entity is ten years. Subject to the applicable conditions, that can be extended following a competitive tender and, where more than one audit firm is simultaneously engaged and issues a joint audit report, the maximum period can extend to 24 years.
French statutory-auditor mandates are normally granted for six financial years. Euronext’s guide to French listed companies notes that the cumulative period can reach 24 years under joint audit arrangements.
This makes staggered auditor appointments especially useful. A company does not necessarily replace both firms at the same time, allowing one auditor to bring accumulated knowledge of the company while the other provides a newer perspective.
That pattern is visible throughout the CAC 40.
At Air Liquide, for example, PwC’s current engagement dates to FY2016 while KPMG joined in FY2022. At Sanofi, PwC’s relationship dates to 1999 while Forvis Mazars joined in 2024. Schneider Electric pairs Forvis Mazars, whose current engagement dates to 2004, with PwC, appointed for FY2022.
The “Since” dates should not be read as a determination of the regulatory rotation clock. Some relationships began before the company became subject to the current public-interest-entity regime, and the EU rules contained transitional provisions. The table records the first financial year of the continuous external-audit relationship identified by Big4News.
A wave of more recent appointments is reshaping the pairings
Although some CAC 40 auditor relationships are longstanding, there has been substantial movement in the last three years.
Twenty-one of the 74 current statutory-auditor appointments began in FY2024 or later.
The FY2026 changes are particularly visible.
KPMG became auditor of Airbus and joined Engie’s statutory-auditor panel. EY replaced Deloitte at Kering. Grant Thornton joined Forvis Mazars at Capgemini, while PwC became auditor of STMicroelectronics.
Another seven current appointments began in FY2025, including Deloitte at Accor, Eiffage and Veolia, EY at EssilorLuxottica and Vinci, and PwC at Publicis Groupe and Thales.
The preceding year brought changes at AXA, BNP Paribas, Crédit Agricole, Eurofins, Euronext, Sanofi, Société Générale and Stellantis.
France therefore combines some very old audit relationships with a surprisingly active market for one side of the joint-audit pairing.
Some relationships nevertheless stretch back decades
Among the current appointments, the oldest exact starting year identified in the dataset is PwC at Bureau Veritas, dating to 1992.
Forvis Mazars has audited Bouygues since 1998. Grant Thornton’s engagement at Hermès, PwC’s at Sanofi and EY’s at Veolia date to 1999. Deloitte has audited Carrefour since 2003, while EY’s current relationships with Bouygues and Thales and Deloitte’s with Pernod Ricard also trace back to 2003.
Again, these historical relationship dates are not equivalent to saying that an auditor has exceeded the maximum term allowed under the current EU rules. The regulatory calculation can depend on factors including when the company became a public-interest entity, changes in legal entities and transitional provisions.
France’s biggest audit bills are concentrated in banking and global groups
A usable audit-fee figure was identified for 35 of the 40 CAC 40 constituents.
The median identified amount is approximately €14.2 million.
BNP Paribas has the largest figure in the dataset, at €67.6 million.
It is followed by:
Société Générale — €49.0 million
TotalEnergies — €46.1 million
Stellantis — €45.4 million
Veolia — €42.0 million
LVMH — €35.0 million
Crédit Agricole — €33.1 million
Sanofi — €29.2 million
ArcelorMittal — €25.7 million
Bouygues — €25.5 million
Because France uses joint audits, these amounts often represent the combined remuneration of both statutory auditors and, where disclosed, relevant firms within their networks, rather than a fee attributable to a single audit firm.
There are also differences in disclosure terminology. Some companies report a narrow statutory-audit figure, while others combine the certification of annual and consolidated accounts with interim review work or closely related audit services.
Big4News uses the figure that most closely represents the external financial-statement audit and excludes consulting, tax and other non-audit services wherever the company’s disclosure allows them to be separated.
Five fee cells remain blank where a sufficiently comparable FY2025 figure could not be established rather than substituting an older amount.
About the data
Auditor 1 and Auditor 2 identify the current statutory auditors of the company as of 30 September 2026.
Where only one auditor is shown, the company does not currently have a second statutory auditor in the dataset. This is particularly relevant to the foreign-incorporated companies within the CAC 40, which are not all subject to the French joint-audit requirement.
For the market-share analysis, Deloitte & Associés is grouped under Deloitte and the corresponding French entities of PwC, EY and KPMG are grouped under their global network names. Forvis Mazars and Grant Thornton are shown separately in the underlying company data and combined into “Other” only for the five-category market-share chart.
Since means the first financial year for which the current audit firm held the external audit engagement, rather than the year in which shareholders subsequently renewed or formally voted on the appointment.
Audit fee is the latest identified amount for statutory audit, certification and closely related financial-statement review work. Where a company has two auditors, the figure generally represents the combined cost of the relevant audit work performed by both firms and their networks.
Where a new auditor was appointed for FY2026 but the latest available fee relates to the predecessor pairing, that distinction is retained rather than presenting the old fee as remuneration earned by the incoming firm.
The research was checked primarily against universal registration documents, statutory-auditor reports, AGM materials, company financial statements and other primary regulatory or corporate sources.
Data checked as of 30 September 2026.
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