French 'Officiers Ministériels': Autonomy of the Legal Professions, Protection of their Market and an Ambivalent Relationship with the State.

Abstract : The occupational status of officier ministeacuteriel which applies to auctioneers (commissaires-priseurs), bailiffs (huissiers de justice) and notaries (notaires) goes back to the Ancien Reacutegime and continues to embody a remarkable example of a typically French model for structuring professions: officiers ministeacuteriels are both the repositories of a slice of public authority and the self-employed members of a profession. This unique status is still upheld by the French state which determines the conditions for entering as well as exercising these professions (granting of monopolies, setting certain fees and competitive practices, etc.). But after having survived intact for so long, the construction of a legal and judicial European space in the second half of the twentieth century has accelerated the transformation of certain professional groups reflected in an entrepreneurial approach and changing business models. Professional representative bodies have also largely contributed to these changes by managing to thwart programmes and political decisions through a wide range of development or resistance strategies.