Brussels, 22/05/2002 (Agence Europe) - The European Commission has decided to turn to the European Court of Justice against France for failing to comply with the life insurance and non-life insurance directive, and has called for a daily penalty of 242,650 euro. France had already been condemned by the Court in 1999 for not having transposed the part of the life and non-life insurance, particularly as regards mutual societies. The texts should in principle have been transposed in 1994. The Commission stresses in a press release that mutual societies were included in the directive "at the request of the French Government so that they would be eligible for the advantages that go with the 'single passport", i.e., so that they would be able to market their insurance services in other Member States. The obligations linked to this single passport have not, however been respected, says the Commission, especially regarding the prudential and financial obligations and the separation of the "insurance" business from their "welfare" business. France is among the poorest students, with Germany, Luxembourg and Greece, in the Commission's scoreboard on the internal market setting out delays in the transposition of European directives. Noting that fact, the new French minister for European affairs, Renault Donnedieu de Vabre, told journalists at the Internal Market Council on Tuesday that he was "Concerned that France seems like the bad egg" and did not respect its commitments, "whereas it claims to be a kind of driving force of Europe".. "We intend to take measures to achieve this transposition. Someone in my Cabinet will be responsible for the issue", he assured.