When Emmanuel Macron launched his campaign to win the French presidency eight years ago, he promised to cut the number of civil servants in France by 50,000 and impose fundamental reforms on the bloated state. So how’s that going?
In 2017 when Macron was elected there were 5.6 million fonctionnaires. By 2021 there were 5.7 million. Last year there were 60,000 more.
Debureaucratisation starts to look less like a bonfire of regulations than a tool to let bureaucrats regulate more, with less effort
So new promises to streamline France’s gargantuan bureaucracy must be taken with several kilograms of fleur de sel. The announcement this week by Gabriel Attal, Macron’s fourth prime minister (they’re as disposable as handkerchiefs), to ‘débureaucratiser la France’ is a classic example of the belief by politicians (and not just here) that saying something is the same thing as doing something.
Realistically, Attal’s so-called debureaucratisation seems more likely to presage an even larger number of officials, administrating an ever-expanding miasma of regulations on individuals and businesses.
‘I want to unlock, release, simplify,’ declared Attal. How often have the French heard this?
Bruno Le Maire, Minister of Economy and Finance, announced last year that he would pass a Bill on ‘administrative simplification’. It’s invisible. President Emmanuel Macron said at a press conference earlier this month that he wanted administrative formalities to be simplified or even abolished as far as possible. We’re still waiting.
It’s not just bureaucrats in France adding to the country’s burden, but those in Europe too. The number of intrusive regulatory texts and laws has exploded, often propelled by the extreme environmental ideology that obsesses the European Union. The revolt of farmers across France and Europe is a symptom of the disconnect between rule makers and those who are expected to obey them.
And now even more civil servants are to be recruited to bring so-called debureaucratisation to every nook and cranny of France.
In the past decade, incomprehensible regulations, absurd laws and fussy standards have flourished – 567 laws, 665 ordinances and 7,451 decrees have been introduced.The Code de Travail, governing every aspect of the relationship between employers and workers in France, runs to 3,400 pages.
‘Every business leader has an example of a despotic and cynical rule that he drags like a ball and chain,’ complains the business magazine Challenges.
‘In textiles, it is the myriad of eco-contribution tariffs for recycling that exasperates: sports pants result in a contribution of 0.0307 euros, while jeans are 0.0907 euros for men and 0.0687 euros for women. Men’s homewear/loungewear pyjamas cost 0.0507 euros, compared to 0.0677 euros for pyjamas.’
‘Like the Maze of mythology, bureaucrats have built a labyrinth of which we are prisoners, like the Minotaur,’ says Sébastien Le Fol, editorial director of the news magazine Le Point.
So debureaucratisation starts to look less like a bonfire of regulations than a tool to let bureaucrats regulate more, with less effort.
For citizens struggling to master their obligations to the state, Attal has promised to streamline French administration by adding yet more officials to work in 3,000 ‘Maisons de France’ tasked with helping citizens negotiate the administrative maze presided over by all the other officials.
The new structure will include representatives from nine public services including the postal service, the employment exchanges, the family benefit service, the health insurance scheme, services for the elderly, regulation and support of the agricultural sector, the tax office, the Ministry of the Interior and the Ministry of Justice.
On top of this, the reform is to be accompanied by the introduction of an an all-encompassing, made-in-France artificial intelligence agent named Albert, which will doubtless involve the employment of even more officials and consultants to create and maintain it.
‘AI will be a chance to put people back at the heart of public services,’ promised Attal. Not that Albert will manage to reduce the number of officials. Everything Albert does will naturally be checked by officials. This is the case with the recent reform of vehicle licensing, which is now ostensibly online, but only inasmuch as the documents produced must be verified by officials.
And none of this will affect the work of the 2.5 million officials employed by the departments, regions, municipalities, mixed syndicates, agglomerations and public hospitals.
Notwithstanding its terrible reputation, French bureaucracy is likely no more awful than that in comparable countries, like Britain, where the tax inquiry office doesn’t answer the phone. Bonfires of red tape have been promised in Britain for decades, with no evident smoke or fire.
Similar bonfires have ever been promised in France even as the rules proliferate. Albert, however artificially intelligent, will not deal with the fundamental problem that every aspect of life here is governed by a procrustean and unaccountable administration. Plus ça change…
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