La société coopérative anonyme à participation ouvrière (Scapo), un instrument juridique au service des coopératives de consommateurs ?

In the consumer cooperative field, employees participating on the board and in the management of a cooperative alongside cooperative members themselves is considered neither an obvious development nor widespread. While not a commonly held view, some feel that formalising a certain level of employee participation makes sense. The article mentions four legal forms that can a­ccommodate this kind of employee participation in France. Besides the community-interest cooperative, which was created fifteen years ago, the author focuses on the cooperative PLC with employee participation (société coopérative anonyme à participation ouvrière, SCAPO), which has had a legal basis for one hundred years. The SCAPO turns out to be particularly consistent with cooperative principles and objectives.