France assigns every company a nine‑digit SIREN number. It follows the legal entity for its entire life. Change the address. Close a branch. The SIREN stays.
That detail surfaces quickly in cross‑border diligence. During a review of French logistics targets last quarter, a legacy paid database listed two operators as separate companies. The official register told a different story. Both records pointed to one SIREN, with several establishments attached through SIRET numbers. One entity. Several operating sites.
The public interface is called Recherche d’entreprises. It sits above the Registre national des entreprises, with data distributed through the INPI pipeline. Most users see a search page in their browser. Beneath that page sits a structured register keyed by SIREN. Ask for the identifier and the response comes from the official record, not a vendor’s interpretation.
Fields that appear in a registry record
A French company profile carries a dense set of fields. Several appear consistently when queried through OpenRegistry.
company_name stores the legal name recorded with the relevant authority, often the Registre du commerce et des sociétés. French firms often keep both a trading name and a legal denomination. The register keeps them as separate entries.
company_number corresponds to the SIREN identifier. Individual establishments appear upstream with their own SIRET numbers, each linked back to that parent number.
jurisdiction_data.forme_juridique records the legal structure. This is where the record states whether the entity is an SAS, SARL, SA, or another form. Guessing from a suffix in the name often fails.
jurisdiction_data.date_immatriculation shows the date the company first entered the trade register.
jurisdiction_data.code_ape holds the activity code under the NAF classification system.
Officer information usually sits in registry sections such as dirigeants within jurisdiction_data. Titles matter here. A président in an SAS holds a role that differs from a gérant in an SARL. The register keeps the wording exactly as filed. That wording becomes useful when tracing individuals across multiple entities, where a small title change can indicate a different legal position.
Filings also appear in the company record. Typical entries include capital increases, director appointments, and registered address updates. Filing metadata often links to the underlying document when the register publishes it.
Areas where the record is incomplete
France keeps beneficial ownership filings in the Registre des bénéficiaires effectifs (RBE). Access rules shifted after the Court of Justice of the European Union decision in case C‑601/20. Several EU countries limited open public access to those registers. France kept partial access for authorised users, though the data is not broadly open.
Run a standard registry query and you usually see company form and officers. Beneficial owners may not appear unless the legal framework allows that information to be shown publicly.
Financial statements follow a similar pattern. Many French companies file annual accounts with the registry. Smaller entities can request confidentiality for certain sections. When that happens the filing still appears in the register. The document itself may remain restricted.
These gaps often slip past cached datasets. Officer lists in subscription databases sometimes lag months behind the official record. A filing lands in the registry. The cached profile stays unchanged.
Querying the French registry through MCP
OpenRegistry connects an AI client directly to the registry query layer. The MCP server passes through the raw fields as they appear upstream. Your software decides what to do with them.
A search by company name or SIREN might look like this:
search_companies({
"jurisdiction": "FR",
"query": "BLADE SAS"
})
The response returns matching entities and their SIREN numbers. Once the identifier is known, the full company record can be requested.
get_company_profile({
"jurisdiction": "FR",
"company_number": "552100554"
})
Officer data comes through a separate call.
get_officers({
"jurisdiction": "FR",
"company_number": "552100554"
})
To inspect the filing history:
list_filings({
"jurisdiction": "FR",
"company_number": "552100554"
})
One field deserves close attention: jurisdiction_data. OpenRegistry leaves these labels unchanged from the upstream register. If the French record calls a field date_immatriculation, that exact label remains in the response. Downstream systems can parse the field or store it unchanged. No intermediary renaming step sits in the middle.
Why diligence teams start with the registry
A French operating company rarely sits alone. Structures often stretch across borders. A holding entity might sit in Luxembourg. The operating subsidiary sits in France. Sales branches appear elsewhere in Europe.
The first lookup matters.
If the starting record is stale, every ownership trace that follows may begin from the wrong assumption. A mistaken officer list. A missing filing. Small errors propagate quickly.
Direct register queries reduce that risk. SIREN numbers remain constant even when establishments change. Officer titles match the wording used in the filing. Filing timestamps line up with the official publication.
A recent screening of mid‑market software firms showed how quickly the picture can shift. One French SAS appeared dormant in an export from a paid database. The official register showed a capital increase filed two weeks earlier. That single filing changed the view of the shareholder structure before the management meeting even began.
OpenRegistry exposes that same registry surface to AI assistants through MCP. Instead of copying records from web portals or relying on cached exports, software can request the French company record directly from the source. Connection details for MCP clients are at https://openregistry.sophymarine.com.
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