Algerian War, “workers’ education leave”… Legislative sweep in sight



The Senate. – MARTIN BUREAU / AFP

  • Do you know how many laws exist in France? “Probably not far from 10,000”, and that is too much for two centrist senators who have set out in search of obsolete texts, to clean up the legislative process.
  • After sorting out the laws prior to 1940 and repealing 49 unnecessary texts in 2019, Valérie Létard and Vincent Delahaye tackle the period from 1940 to 1980.
  • They identified more than a hundred texts that deserve to be repealed, because they relate to obsolete subjects, such as the provisional government from 1944 to 1946 or the “call to the flags” of 1950.

Parliament also does its spring cleaning. More than a hundred obsolete laws, because not applied or no longer relevant, are on the verge of being abolished. Behind this sorting, two centrist senators, Valérie Létard and Vincent Delahaye, who have given themselves the mission of “hunting down legislative” fossils “which have finished producing their effects, but continue to clutter our legislative landscape”. They identified
163 laws to be deleted, because having “no more than an archaeological interest”. The Law Commission finally retained 115, the deletion of which must be approved this Thursday in the Senate. The text will then have to be voted on in the Assembly, at the beginning of 2022 perhaps.

A stroke of “Broom”

“We make too many texts, we pile them up, one on top of the other …” blows Vincent Delahaye, senator from Essonne, already at the initiative, with his centrist colleague, of the suppression of 49 laws, dating from 1819 to 1940, in 2019. They took up their “Broom” (for “Office for the repeal of old unnecessary laws”) and this time peeled the texts promulgated from 1940 to 1980.

Meticulous work: “We went through the registers. Often it is the titles of the laws that put our ears in our ears, ”he says. It is then necessary to verify that no article or provision of the law is yet applied or applicable. “If we have the slightest doubt, we abstain. A text thus escaped the ax, the law of August 1, 1955 on the creation of an interprofessional committee of blackcurrant of Dijon. Despite a dissolution voted unanimously by its members in 2017, its removal was not without consequences. “Some laws may seem obsolete even though they still constitute the legal basis for current acts or situations,” comments the rapporteur of the text, Catherine Di Folco (Les Républicains).

Provisional government, Algerian war …

Reviewing these obsolete laws allows you to revise your history a little. We thus find the law of November 1945 relating to the attributions of the ministers of the provisional government of the Republic, established from 1944 to 1946. There is also the law of March 1948 on the Algerian Assembly, dissolved in 1956, and that of March 1950 on “the call of young people under the flags” aimed at mobilizing troops sent to Algeria. It was the last time that French citizens were thus called upon to serve the army.

The law of July 1954 on the election of the councilors of the Republic can also be repealed, because they were replaced … by the senators in the Constitution of 1958. Same logic concerning a law promulgated in December 1979 and dealing with the regional council of the Corsica, a body replaced three years later by the Corsican Assembly. As for the ancestor of training leave, born in 1957 under the name of “worker education leave”, its legal text no longer has any reason to exist.

“No one is able to say how many laws we have! “

“It’s a drop of water”, relativizes Vincent Delahaye about the 115 texts soon erased. “No one is able to say how many laws we have! Probably not far from 10,000… ”The senator nevertheless intends to continue this long grooming. It is already attacking the General Code of Local Authorities, and its “more than 400,000 standards”, before targeting other legislative areas.

This cleaning is useful, argues the centrist senator. “It’s as healthy as cleaning your house. This reduces the number of standards, avoids the risk of confusion between texts, and improves the readability of our law. Because no one is supposed to ignore the law, but there are so many that you get confused. “A household that still has a bright future ahead: in 2016, 2,392 legislative articles were adopted, according to Dalloz.



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