The current state of market infrastructure is the result of several recent distinctions: first, between the different infrastructures needed for the functioning of the financial market and, second, between the infrastructure and its manager. For a long time, these different aspects were concentrated in the statute of the stockbrokers, instituted by the State. Through this, the financial market managed by the stockbrokers was already attached to the State. This legal, rather than geographical, attachment was already serving as a basis for the regulation of private relations that the infrastructure allowed. In order to observe this, it is necessary to retrace the history of French financial markets from the Middle Ages to the present day (Section 1.). The connecting factor of infrastructures has nevertheless changed, in particular because of the evolution of the institutional context, now European, in which infrastructures are embedded (Section 2.).

Section 1. THE CONFIGURATION OF FRENCH FINANCIAL MARKETS

The contemporary configuration of French financial markets is based on three distinctions. The first is that between the manager and the system. The second distinction is between the systems necessary for the proper functioning of the financial market: trading systems, also called trading platforms, clearing systems and securities settlement systems. The third distinction is between the different categories of trading platforms within trading systems. These three types of separation, which structure the contemporary organisation of financial markets (§ 2), are the result of the historical development of financial markets (§ 1).