An établissement public à caractère industriel et commercial (, EPIC; lit. 'public institution of an industrial and commercial nature') is, in France, a category of public undertaking. It includes state-controlled entities of an industrial or commercial nature, including some research institutes and infrastructure operators. Some former French colonies, such as Algeria, Burkina Faso and Mauritania also use this term for such agencies.
EPICs were first recognized as a specific form of public agencies by the Court of Arbitration's (French: Tribunal des conflits) case law in 1921.[1] In accordance with Article 34 of the French Constitution, they can only be created by a law. Not every company whose capital is held by the state or a state-owned entity is an EPIC. An EPIC is under special laws which do not apply to enterprises under private company law, even if the capital of those companies is held by the state.
List of EPICs
Current
- Agence nationale pour la gestion des déchets radioactifs (Andra)
- Airport Basel-Mulhouse
- Commissariat à l'énergie atomique (CEA), the energy research agency
- CNES, the French government space agency
- BRGM, the French geological survey
- Centre Scientifique et Technique du Batiment (CSTB), the scientific and technical centre for building[2]
- Ifremer, "Institut français de recherche pour l'exploitation de la mer", an oceanographic institute
- Institut de radioprotection et de sûreté nucléaire, (IRSN) the French institute for radioprotection and nuclear safety