Our history

Shortly after the fall of Napoleon, France faced a serious financial crisis, with savers showing a severe lack of trust in French institutions. In response to these difficulties, in April 1816 the French government decided to establish Caisse des Dépôts and entrust it with the management of private funds. To safeguard these resources from potential misuse, this new institution was placed under the protection and supervision of the French Parliament, which entrusted it with a primary objective of restoring public faith. 

Since it was founded over 200 years ago, Caisse des Dépôts has constantly been developing, transforming and reinventing itself. Thanks to the originality and strength of its model, it has been able to survive over the centuries and adapt to meet the challenges of each new era: encouraging household savings, developing the local public sector, social protection, pensions and death and disability insurance, post-war reconstruction, urban development, urban planning. In more recent years, Caisse des Dépôts has had to adapt to a financialised world amid increasingly fragmented globalisation and the climate emergency.

Caisse des Dépôts is constantly developing ideas, crafting new activities and expertise and helping to structure new markets. It adapts to France's needs and approaches immediate issues with a long-term perspective. Together with its subsidiaries and strategic investments, it is now the leading entirely public financial hub, and forms a diverse Group which "fulfils public interest functions in support of the policies pursued by the French State and local authorities, and may engage in competitive activities".

The Caisse des Dépôts Group’s work is structured around three strategic objectives: France's ecological transformation, sovereignty and economic growth, and social and regional cohesion.