France assigns each company a nine‑digit SIREN. It stays with the legal entity for life. Individual establishments receive SIRET numbers derived from that same SIREN. The distinction looks small on paper. During cross‑border diligence it stops being small. Many aggregator databases flatten the relationship and present those identifiers as if they represent separate companies.
I tripped over this while screening a mid‑market industrial supplier last year. The subscription database showed three French entities linked to the same parent group. The RNCS records behind Recherche d’entreprises told a different story. One legal company. Three operating establishments.
The SIREN was identical in every record. Only the SIRET changed. That detail shifts how you trace liabilities and which filings attach to the legal entity.
OpenRegistry queries the same French registry surface used by Recherche d’entreprises and returns the upstream fields exactly as they appear. No reinterpretation layer sits between the tool call and the registry response.
Fields that matter in the RNCS record
RNCS company profiles carry a dense field set. English summaries often smooth over the parts that matter when you are checking a counterparty. Pull a French profile through OpenRegistry and a handful of attributes tend to carry the signal.
jurisdiction_data.siren is the anchor. Use it when matching officers or walking a group structure. Establishments have their own SIRET values. The SIREN identifies the legal person registered with the commercial court.
jurisdiction_data.denomination stores the registered legal name. France handles name changes through filings rather than overwriting the field. If the name in the profile looks unfamiliar, check the recent actes. The explanation is usually sitting there.
jurisdiction_data.forme_juridique records the legal structure. SAS, SARL, SA and SNC appear often. Each form comes with different governance mechanics. An SAS concentrates authority around a Président. An SARL relies on one or more Gérants. That distinction matters when you check who can bind the company to a contract.
jurisdiction_data.capital_social holds the declared share capital at registration or after amendment. Capital adjustments show up regularly during acquisitions or internal reorganisations. Compare this number with the most recent filing date. Aggregator datasets sometimes lag behind and still show the earlier figure.
jurisdiction_data.date_immatriculation gives the original RNCS registration date. Older companies occasionally predate digital filing. Early history may exist only as scanned acts.
Officer data normally sits in a dirigeants structure. Names appear with roles and sometimes birth details. Matching directors across French entities can become messy because of accents or compound surnames. Normalising on SIREN rather than the person’s name cuts down false matches.
Surfaces the registry does not expose
France maintains a beneficial ownership register called the Registre des bénéficiaires effectifs (RBE). Access tightened after European court rulings that limited open AML registers. Public visibility is now restricted to parties able to demonstrate legitimate interest.
Because of that restriction, beneficial ownership records do not appear through the public Recherche d’entreprises interface. OpenRegistry cannot return them either. If a diligence workflow requires UBO verification in France, that step still needs authorised access through official channels.
Financial statements form another partial gap. Many companies file annual accounts with the registry. Smaller entities can request confidentiality for parts of those statements. The filing record still appears in the register. The financial tables may be redacted in the public view.
Querying the French registry via MCP
OpenRegistry exposes RNCS search and company profile endpoints through MCP tools. The AI client interprets fields. The server passes through the registry response.
Most lookups begin with a name or a known SIREN.
search_companies({
"jurisdiction": "FR",
"query": "Air Liquide"
})
Results normally include the SIREN, legal name, company status and registered address. Once the correct entry is identified, pull the full profile.
get_company_profile({
"jurisdiction": "FR",
"company_number": "552096281"
})
The response returns the RNCS record with the jurisdiction_data block intact. Fields such as siren, forme_juridique, capital_social and the registered address appear exactly as published by the registry.
Officer checks require another call.
get_officers({
"jurisdiction": "FR",
"company_number": "552096281"
})
Each dirigeant appears with a title. Président, Gérant or Directeur général signal different authority structures depending on the legal form.
For transaction work, the filings list often gives the useful timeline.
list_filings({
"jurisdiction": "FR",
"company_number": "552096281"
})
French filings frequently include statute updates, capital amendments or governance changes. When a document exists you can retrieve it with fetch_document and the filing identifier.
Where the distinction shows up in real diligence
French operating structures often consist of one legal entity running several establishments. Aggregator datasets flatten that structure and display each SIRET as if it were a separate company. The RNCS record keeps the legal entity clear through the SIREN.
The pattern appears quickly when mapping a group. A director showing up across several SIRENs usually signals separate companies. The same person across multiple SIRETs often means they manage different establishments of one entity.
Capital amendments show another angle. During one transaction review the RNCS filings recorded a capital increase weeks before the deal announcement. The subscription database still displayed the earlier amount. Anyone modelling ownership percentages from that cached figure would have misread the dilution.
Direct registry queries remove that delay. You see the same RNCS entry a French notary or corporate lawyer would retrieve that day.
Run those checks programmatically through the MCP endpoint at https://openregistry.sophymarine.com.
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