How much do the leaders of large listed companies earn, and how are those amounts decided? This salary guide examines how salaries work in France at the very top, analysing the executive pay of CAC 40 companies and state-owned enterprises with figures that are always dated and sourced. The aim is not to judge, but to understand what remuneration reveals about a company’s governance, a criterion every shareholder should look at.
Our Executive Biographies and Their Pay
- Executive pay: figures and analysis
- Frédéric Saint-Geours: pay at PSA Peugeot Citroën
- Frank Esser: pay at SFR and Vivendi
- Benoît Potier: pay and pension at Air Liquide
- Ross McInnes: pay and career at Safran
- Jean-Marc Gales: pay at PSA Peugeot Citroën
- Lars Olofsson: pay at Carrefour (2009-2012)
- Baudouin Prot: pay at BNP Paribas (2007-2014)
- Jean-Bernard Lévy: pay at Vivendi, Thales and EDF
- Emmanuel Faber’s pay at Danone: figures, waived entitlements and departure
The Executive Pay Analysed in This Salary Guide
- Emmanuel Faber (Danone): a CEO who gave up his supplementary pension and his departure payment before being pushed out by shareholders in 2021.
- Baudouin Prot (BNP Paribas): a banker’s pay before, during and after the 2008 crisis.
- Jean-Bernard Lévy (Vivendi, Thales, EDF): from the private sector to the pay ceiling that applies to state-owned companies.
- Lars Olofsson (Carrefour): high pay set against a sharply falling share price.
- Jean-François Palus (PPR/Kering): the pay of a deputy chief executive.
- Jean-Marc Gales (PSA Peugeot Citroën): the pay of a management board member during the car industry crisis.
- Ross McInnes (Safran): chief financial officer, then non-executive chairman.
- Pierre Louette (AFP, Orange): pay under the watchful eye of the state as shareholder.
- Benoît Potier (Air Liquide): the pay and pension of a long-serving CEO.
- Frank Esser (SFR, Vivendi): the pay of a Vivendi management board member at the helm of SFR.
- Frédéric Saint-Geours (PSA Peugeot Citroën): from PSA’s management board to the chairmanship of the UIMM and the SNCF.
Salary in France Explained: How to Read an Executive’s Pay Package
| Component | What to Look At |
|---|---|
| Fixed pay | How it has moved over time, and the salary comparison with companies of a similar size |
| Annual bonus | The criteria (financial and non-financial) and their weighting |
| Long-term pay | Performance shares: conditions, vesting period, cap |
| Deferred benefits | Supplementary pension, departure payment, non-compete clause |
| Pay ratio | The gap with the average salary France asks companies to publish (mean and median) |
| Shareholder vote | An approval rate below 80% is a signal of shareholder distrust |
Since the Sapin II law of 2016, shareholders of French listed companies have voted in a binding way on pay policy and on the amounts paid to executives. The official figures appear in each company’s universal registration document, in the corporate governance section, which is where these salary benchmarks come from.
To set these pay packages within each leader’s career path, see also our section of executive biographies. These analyses are informative in nature and do not constitute investment advice.
This page has an educational purpose and does not constitute investment advice.