Economy & Commons

France's Social and Solidarity Economy: A Quiet Transformation Already Underway

The Social and Solidarity Economy accounts for 10% of French employment and brings together 2.6 million people. From cooperatives to mutual health insurers, the economic alternative isn't a utopia — it's already a discreet pillar of the French economy.

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France’s Social and Solidarity Economy: A Quiet Transformation Already Underway

TL;DR: The Social and Solidarity Economy (SSE) accounts for 10% of French employment, with 2.6 million people — 14% of private-sector jobs. From cooperatives to mutual health insurers, including SCOPs whose five-year survival rate exceeds the national average by 10 percentage points, this sector is far from marginal. It is already a discreet pillar of the French economy — one that most people simply never notice.

One in seven private-sector workers in France works for an organisation that does not distribute its profits to external shareholders. This isn’t a utopia waiting to be built: it’s a reality that INSEE has been measuring for decades.

In 2022, the Social and Solidarity Economy represented 10% of French employment and 2.6 million jobs, according to the national SSE Observatory and INSEE. The Directorate General of the Treasury confirms the figure in its own publications. So does the Ministry of the Economy. Three independent sources, one shared finding: the SSE is not a niche sector.

What the SSE Actually Covers

Before the numbers, a clarification. The SSE is not an ideology: it is a legal definition, enshrined in the law of 31 July 2014. It brings together five families of organisations that share the same core principles: democratic governance, limited profit distribution, and social utility. One person, one vote.

According to INSEE Flores 2022, those five families are:

  • 120,749 associations, representing 79% of SSE employment — 2 million employees
  • 23,880 cooperatives — 313,239 jobs
  • 7,329 mutual societies — 137,738 jobs
  • 721 foundations — 122,916 jobs
  • Certified social and solidarity enterprises

In total: 155,000 employing organisations. A scale few people imagine.

Three Sectors Where the SSE Already Leads

SCOPs: Resilience as Proof

A Société Coopérative de Production (SCOP) is owned by its employees. Every employee-member holds one vote, regardless of their level of responsibility. Is that economically viable?

According to the General Confederation of SCOPs, the movement today counts 4,583 cooperatives and 94,745 jobs, with net revenue of €10.3 billion in 2025 — a 28.6% growth over three years. More strikingly, the five-year survival rate stands at 79%, versus 69% for French businesses overall according to INSEE. These structures survive better. Between 2022 and 2025, 1,368 jobs were preserved through the takeover of struggling companies in cooperative form.

That 10-percentage-point gap is worth contextualising: it is partly explained by the profile of founding projects, often carried by already-mobilised collectives rather than solo entrepreneurs. That’s not the only variable. But it is a real, verifiable figure, published by INSEE.

Agricultural Cooperatives: Three Quarters of Farmers

French agriculture could not function without its cooperatives. According to Coop FR, France has 2,100 agricultural cooperatives, 200,000 employees (including subsidiaries), and €118 billion in turnover. Three quarters of French farmers belong to an agricultural cooperative.

That translates into structural market shares: 70% of cereal collection, 90% of sugar beet production, 55% of cow’s milk, and one in every two bottles of wine from a cooperative cellar. The SSE is not an alternative to the market — in these sectors, it is the market.

Mutual Health Insurers: The Leading Family in Supplementary Cover

When you pay your health insurance top-up, there’s a good chance it’s managed by a mutual — a not-for-profit organisation with no shareholders, governed by its members.

In 2021, health mutuals collected €18.6 billion in contributions out of a total market of €39.4 billion — 47% of all supplementary health contributions, ahead of insurance companies (36%) and provident institutions (17%). Harmonie Mutuelle, MGEN: these familiar names belong to the SSE.

Associations: Neither Charity Nor Dependency

One common misconception deserves correction: associations live primarily from their own activity, not from grants. According to the Commentated Atlas of the SSE, 65.2% of their income comes from the sale of their services. Dependence on public funding concerns a minority of the associative sector.

It is in social action that the SSE weighs most heavily: 59.5% of jobs in that sector belong to the SSE. Community crèches, associative care homes, integration structures: a large share of everyday social fabric is managed according to SSE principles — often without your knowing it.

Growth, Then a First Decline: A Necessary Nuance

From 2022 to mid-2024, the SSE showed employment growth above the broader economy. In the first half of 2024, +1.4% year-on-year jobs — an additional 31,257 employees, bringing the sector to 2.7 million people.

But the second-half 2025 economic note, published in April 2026 by the national SSE Observatory, signals a first reversal: the SSE lost 10,447 jobs between December 2024 and December 2025. Context: budgetary austerity is weighing on associations and publicly-funded structures. UDES had already flagged the risk that cuts to public funding posed to 186,000 jobs.

This setback does not undermine the sector’s fundamentals. But it underlines that the SSE is not detached from economic reality. It depends in part on public support — particularly for associations managing public-interest services. That is a structural challenge to name clearly, not to minimise.

A European Phenomenon With Local Roots

France is not alone. According to the SEE Memorandum 2024, the social economy employs across Europe 13.6 million people in 2.8 million organisations. In France, the SSE is particularly present in rural areas, where it represents 13.8% of employment.

The Banque des Territoires invested more than €300 million in the SSE ecosystem between 2020 and 2022 — a signal that the sector is recognised as structurally significant by the public actors of economic development.

What This Actually Changes

Ten per cent of French employment. 2.6 million jobs. A survival rate above the national average. Forty-seven per cent of the supplementary health market. These figures do not describe a marginal alternative — they describe a discreet pillar of the French economy.

The question is no longer whether the SSE can exist. It exists. The question now is what place you want to give it — as a consumer, as an employee, or as the leader of an organisation reconsidering its model.

Biocoop, Les Restos du Cœur, your local agricultural cooperative, your mutual health insurer: many SSE organisations are already part of your daily life. You may not have known. Now you do.

Sources

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