The CPI, published annually since 1995, now covers 182 countries, assessed on the degree of perceived corruption in the public sector, with scores ranging from 0 (“highly corrupt”) to 100 (“highly clean”).

This ranking is a reference tool for compliance officers, both for calculating country risk and in the context of due diligence.

Although France’s position has remained unchanged for several years, its score fell from 71 to 67 in 2024, and has dropped to 66 in 2025.

This new score places France 27th out of 182 countries, compared to 20th place the previous year. As such, France ranks below the average for countries categorized as “fully democratic.” This is its worst ranking since the index was created, despite the “immediate” areas for improvement that had been proposed, such as increasing the resources of the PNF, strengthening the independence of the public prosecutor’s office and the rules applicable to lobbying, and placing the management of the multi-year National Anti-Corruption Plan under the authority of the Prime Minister.

This year’s report also highlights the sharp decline in the global average, including in countries that have historically ranked well, such as the United States, France, the United Kingdom, and Canada.

Transparency France’s analysis of the score is particularly harsh. Several factors are put forward to explain this result, such as:

• a lack of political will,
• chronic under-resourcing in terms of enforcement and prevention,
• the “gradual dismantling of the ambitious rules put in place during the 2010s” (“the permanent increase in public procurement advertising thresholds,” “the dismantling of legality controls,” and “the modification of the definition of illegal taking of interest”).