At six weeks of primary on the right, Valérie Pécresse draws her measures. In an interview with Opinion, Monday, October 18, the candidate for the nomination of the Republicans in the presidential election proposes to delete “150,000 positions” in “administering administration” during the next five-year term. “The State must refocus on its three priority missions: protect, educate, care, with where necessary additional posts for justice, education and care. It is not a question of degrading the public service , nor to break the recovery. But spending must fall “, insists the president of the Ile-de-France region, who is seeking the votes of LR members at the December 4 congress against her two main rivals Michel Barnier and Xavier Bertrand.
“If I am elected President of the Republic, my first decision will therefore be to initiate four major structural reforms to lower spending and reduce the tax burden”, she adds, listing “retirement at 65, the degression of unemployment benefits, the de-bureaucratization of the country and decentralization with a letting go of the State to remove duplicates “. In September, Valérie Pécresse had already mentioned the reduction “in five years of 10% of the administering administration, that is to say of the civil servants who manage standards and procedures”.
On Twitter, the current Minister of Transformation and Public Service was not shy to say what she thought of this initiative. “The administering administration only exists in the interviews of Valérie Pécresse, reacted Amélie de Montchalin. This very vague expression reflects the lack of vision of the state on the right. This is the return of the RGPP method: dark cuts without efficiency, “she said, in an allusion to the” general review of public policies “ conducted during Nicolas Sarkozy’s five-year term, from 2007 to 2012.
EXCLUSIVE: the “administering administration” only exists in the interviews of @vpecresse.
This very vague expression reflects the lack of vision of the state on the right. It’s the return of the RGPP method: dark cuts without the effectiveness. pic.twitter.com/UIlsKMKmXS
– Amélie de Montchalin (@AdeMontchalin) October 18, 2021
In 2017, François Fillon, defeated right-wing presidential candidate, defended the elimination of 500,000 public official positions in five years. Emmanuel Macron had for his part promised the elimination of 120,000 positions, 70,000 in local authorities and 50,000 positions in the State civil service, an objective abandoned in July 2019. The 2022 budget confirms the stability of the staff of the function public during the entire five-year term.