Particle retention is a major constraint in today's tokamaks and will be in future fusion devices like ITER in which the amount of tritium will be strictly limited for safety considerations. Global particle balances have been performed for long discharges to gain a global understanding of the particle inventory for steady state operations. In Tore Supra, long discharges (up to 265s) have been carried out in steady state conditions on the toroidal pump limiter (TPL). In JET, long diverted discharges (up to 50s) have also been achieved in L-mode. Gas injection scans performed during H mode discharges at JET for "medium" (16sec) and "short" (~6sec) durations have been investigated as well as H mode in reversed B configuration. The particle balances and the associated particle retentions for the long discharge experiments performed in Tore Supra and for the L and H mode discharges carried out in JET are reported in this paper.