Prime Minister Jean Castex with the prefect of Yvelines, Jean-Jacques Brot, in Saint-Rémy-lès-Chevreuse, April 15, 2021 (illustration). – ISA HARSIN / SIPA
The reform of the senior administration wanted by Emmanuel Macron, including the abolition of the ENA, continues. The government is preparing to remove the body of prefects while maintaining the function, we learned Saturday from Matignon.
“The Prime Minister met Thursday, May 6 by videoconference with the entire prefectural body, to discuss with them the ongoing reform of the High Civil Service”, which “aims to improve the management of senior state officials, according to a logic based on career paths and skills, more than on membership of bodies or statutes, ”said Matignon, confirming information from the World and D’Public actors.
“Promote more open and less compartmentalized routes”
This change “should make it possible to better recruit, train and support senior government officials in the diversity of their functions and professions. There is therefore no question that this reform could undermine the prefectural function, its specificities and its attractiveness, ”specifies those around Jean Castex. It “should make it possible, through the creation of a single body of State administrators, to promote more open and less compartmentalized paths, better monitored and regularly assessed throughout their career”.
But for Matignon, however, there is “no question of ignoring the specificity of certain professions”. The prefectural profession “is acquired through experience acquired in the field”, acknowledge the services of the Prime Minister. Jean Castex has moreover “expressed to the prefects and sub-prefects all his confidence”.
Darmanin tries to reassure the prefects
But these statements will not have prevented provoking, during the meeting of May 6, “incomprehension” and “trouble” among the prefects and sub-prefects, reported a participant, noting that the reform would not apply nor to the Council of State, neither to the Court of Auditors, nor to diplomats, on the grounds that these bodies each formed a professional branch. Problem: the prefects and sub-prefects also consider forming a business line. According to this participant, Jean Castex however promised that the government would try to reintegrate the prefectural profession in the reform.
The Minister of the Interior, Gerald Darmanin, also tried Saturday evening to reassure the officials under his supervision. In a message on Facebook, he reaffirmed that “the sub-prefects and prefects are the backbone of the State in the territories. They will remain so ”. Referring to “great servants of the State”, the Minister recalled that they have accompanied “for more than two centuries the history” of the country. “How to imagine that the Government touches such a symbol? This is obviously irrelevant, ”added the Minister. It remains to be seen whether this will be enough to bring down the controversy within the prefectural.