Breakdown of Nous pensions que ceux-ci auraient achevé le bilan.
nous
we / us (object pronoun)
avoir
to have
penser
to think
que
that (introducing a clause)
Questions & Answers about Nous pensions que ceux-ci auraient achevé le bilan.
Why is auraient achevé (conditional past) used here instead of the future perfect?
This is the sequence of tenses in action. If the main verb were in the present, we would say Nous pensons que ceux-ci auront achevé le bilan (We think they will have completed the assessment). But because the reporting verb pensions is in the past, the future perfect (auront achevé) must backshift to the conditional past (auraient achevé).
Does auraient achevé express an unconfirmed rumor here?
The conditional past is often used in French to mean 'allegedly' or to report unconfirmed information, but that is not its function here. Because it follows a past-tense reporting verb (Nous pensions que), it strictly acts as a 'past future perfect'. It expresses an action we thought was going to be completely finished by a certain time.
Why use ceux-ci instead of just ils?
Ceux-ci is a demonstrative pronoun meaning 'these' or 'the latter'. While ils (they) would be grammatically correct, ceux-ci is used to clearly point back to the very last group of people or things mentioned in the previous context. This is incredibly useful for avoiding confusion if multiple groups were just being discussed.
Is there a difference between achevé and fini in this context?