Il nuovo 'Code de la Commande Publique'. Quel (tanto) che resta della specificità francese in materia di contratti pubblici

In France the new Code de la commande publique was recently adopted to implement the European directives on public contracts (Directives nn. 2014/23/EU, 2014/24/EU, 2014/25/EU). The European legislator has not taken a stand on the qualification of the special regime that characterises them, as private law or public law. However he widened the number of contracts subject to the rules of public evidence, binding them to respect the principle of free competition. The French legislator has chosen to reaffirm in the new Code the centrality of the national contrat administratif concluded exclusively by formally public entities, under a substantial public regime. The contrat administratif today is codified in the titre preliminaire, next to the "general" principles of competition, which, however, do not appear to be uniformly applicable to the "other contracts" under private law (finally recognised in the Code, without a specific regime). There is no silver bullet: the ordinary and administrative courts are in charge of solving the issue.