Co-operation in France, a plural reality

International audienceThis short paper presents the dynamics of cooperation in France. Cooperatives are part of the "social economy", along with mutuality and associations, and represent a powerful set of enterprises with regards to their total number of members. They have a leading role in the banking sector and a major role in the agricultural sector and in the retail trade. The general law of 1947 on co-ops is not sufficient to avoid a fragmentation in the legal conception of them. Moreover, new forms have emerged since twenty years. We emphasize the case of the co-operative companies of collective interest called SCIC and the business and employment cooperatives called CAE, both coming from the statute of workers' cooperatives (SCOP). Eventually, one stress the risk of banalisation and isomorphism, and one conclude on the need of the general recognition of social economy in France as one major factor that could give a further impetus to co-ops