In the professional branches, the professional employers’ organisations are representative:
1° which meet the criteria mentioned in 1° to 5° of article L. 2151-1 ;
2° Which have a balanced territorial coverage within the branch;
3° Whose member companies and organisations are up to date with their subscriptions and represent either at least 8% of all companies belonging to professional employers’ organisations in the sector that meet the criteria mentioned in 1° to 4° of article L. 2151-1 and have made the declaration of candidacy provided for in article L. 2152-5, or at least 8% of the employees in these same companies. The number of companies belonging to these organisations and the number of their employees are certified, for each of them, by an auditor, who may be that of the organisation, under conditions determined by regulation. The audience is measured every four years.
In the branches exclusively covering the agricultural activities mentioned in 1° to 4° of article L. 722-1 of the rural and maritime fishing code as well as those of the agricultural equipment use cooperatives, the thresholds set in 3° of this article are assessed at national level in the sectors of activity concerned, and the member companies and holdings are those covered, in the year preceding the audience measurement, by a of 3° of article L. 723-15 of the French Rural and Maritime Fishing Code, regardless of the number of hours worked by the employees concerned. In these branches, employers’ associations constituted in accordance with the law of 1st July 1901 relating to the contract of association and whose statutory purpose is the defence of professional interests are also assimilated to the professional employers’ organisations mentioned in II of article L. 2151-1 of the present code.