Cour des Comptes (France)

However, the 1946 and 1958 French constitutions made it the Court's duty to assist the Cabinet and Parliament in regulating government spending.

It is also a Grand Corps of the French State and mainly recruits among the best-ranked students graduating from the Ecole nationale d'administration.

During the Ancien Régime, the Court of Auditors was located in the French monarchy's ancestral Palais de la Cité, between the Sainte-Chapelle and the Conciergerie.

In May 1871 at the end of the Paris Commune, the Palais d'Orsay was entirely destroyed by fire and the Cour des Comptes was temporarily relocated in the Palais-Royal.

[1] The new building on rue Cambon was designed by architect Constant Moyaux, and after the latter's death in October 1911 by Paul Guadet [fr], on the site of a former convent whose church survives nearby as Notre-Dame-de-l'Assomption.

In such cases, the Court fines public accounting officials for the exact amount of any sum of money that, due to an error on their part, they have unduly paid or failed to recover on behalf of the State.

Often, however, the Ministry of Finance alleviates a defaulter by granting an abatement of his arrears as the full amount is likely too much to ever pay out of pocket.

Since their creation, they have original jurisdiction for most local, county, and regional accounting matters in continental France and its overseas dependencies.

In case of budgetary discrepancies, the Court can ask the local prefect to intervene and oversee the handling of public funds until budget problems have been corrected.

Judges have security of tenure and some also serve as Commissioners-in-Council with prosecutorial duties under the Office of the Prosecutor at the Court of Audit of France.

Accounts for towns of fewer than 3,500 inhabitants and receipts totalling less than 750,000 euros are automatically referred to the local county or regional treasurer.