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Financial reporting quality is a major pillar of corporate governance. We examine whether institutional investors inhibit mangers’ discretional behavior in France. We consider two dimensions of institutional heterogeneity: the investment size of the institution and its nationality. Panel regression techniques are performed on French firms over the period 2012-2017. Multivariate analysis of earnings management on institutional ownership results in opportunistic monitoring of institutional investors when taken as a single set. However, when considering institutional investors’ nationality, our finding shed light on the influential role of domestic institutional investors whereas foreign institutional investors are found to have no influence over managers’ discretion. Importantly, considering for ownership levels of institutional investors, we report evidence of a non monotonic effect of foreign institutional ownership on earnings management.