The purpose of the contract is to provide statutory auditing services for the Banque de France by 2 firms of statutory auditors over a period of six financial years.

• verify that the Banque de France's annual individual accounts are regular and truthful and give a true and fair view of the results of operations for the past financial year and of the financial position and assets;

• verify the accuracy and consistency of the information given in the report on the financial situation and results of the Banque de France with the annual individual accounts;

• Prepare a general report summarizing the results of these audits;

• verifying the compliance of the accounts of the pension scheme of permanent staff with the French accounting rules and principles applicable to social security schemes and bodies;

• prepare, pursuant to Article 313-17-1 of the AMF General Regulation, a report on the measures taken by the Bank to meet its obligations to protect its clients' holdings of financial instruments;

• Participates as required in meetings of the Audit Committee;

• participate in the meeting of the General Council approving the annual accounts, in accordance with Article L.142-6 of the French Monetary and Financial Code;

• Present the results of their work to the relevant units and to the Bank's management.

In addition, due to the Banque de France's membership of the Eurosystem, the statutory auditors will have to conduct audits on the instructions of the ECB's statutory auditors. These audits will focus on:

• compliance with the procedures set out in the Guideline on the management of ECB's foreign reserve assets;

• confirmation of the ECB's gold stock and foreign exchange reserves managed by the Banque de France as at 31 December;

• confirmation of the amount of euro banknotes put into circulation by the Banque de France on 31 December;

• Confirmation of the balance TARGET2 as of December 31.