Struggle for power in French system of professions: the historic quarrel between accountants and lawyers

In France, the lawyers and the accountants have very different origins and destinies, but a common economic sphere of activity joined them together, in a fortuitous way, during the 2nd World War. The French ordinance of September 19, 1945, has always been the law of the Institute of Chartered Accountants. This chart has been of great use since its promulgation, because it contains some articles particularly relevant and structuring. But sometimes it contains more contestable paragraphs. Among those, article number 22 treats of the additional missions of the Chartered Accountant and often-caused competitions between lawyers and accountants. This document points out some stages of this fight and gives an extreme example of these contests, which will have to necessarily disappear, for the common use of both firms and professional institutes. In this paper, we will limit ourselves to the institutional aspect of the problem. Later, we will examine the sociological context.