Many thanks for your quick answer Todd !!!
You are completely right. There are many other tools which perform comparison between feature layers but the problem is that none of them makes a classification of the changes detected as the DFC tool does. I'm talking about the CHANGE_TYPE field : NC (No changes), S (Only Spatial Changes), D (Deleted Feature), ...
By the moment, I have solved DFC for polygon features with the following recipe:
(1) Transform Polygons to Polylines,
(2) Execute "Detect Feature Changes" tool,
(3) and finally, re-construct polygons from polylines using their original ID.
If anyone has a better idea, or any workaround for point features, don't hesitate to share.
Thanks in advance !
Anna.