“Rather than perpetuating normative inflation, France would benefit from better applying the existing texts”

Lat 16^e legislature of the V^e République really began on July 6, with the general policy speech of the Prime Minister, Elisabeth Borne. Everyone has their own prediction: “Room not found”, « back to IV^e Republic “, “chance of a German-style evolution”… But it would be regrettable if one subject fell by the wayside: normative inflation.

What is it about ? Normative inflation refers to the growth of the standards in force (net balance after repeals), namely the binding legal rules resulting from laws, but also from ordinances or regulatory decrees, reflecting the successive policies of the majorities in power, and enforceable under penalty of penalties for citizens, citizens or businesses. In France, they are grouped together in codes (codes for education, public procurement, consumption, public health, intellectual property, etc.), which might seem like progress in terms of accessibility, but also reveals a bewildering overweight: in total, 78 codes exist to date.

Read the column: Article reserved for our subscribers “The current institutional upheaval is a tremendous opportunity to open up the democratic process”

All the Presidents of the Republic went there with their little phrase to stigmatize the production resulting from… their own government! Like Emmanuel Macron, on July 3, 2017, before Parliament meeting in Congress. “Let’s know, he said, put an end to legislative proliferation. We know this disease, it has been named so many times and I fear myself in a previous life to have participated in it. It weakens the law which loses part of its vigor and certainly of its meaning in the accumulation of texts. » And yet the ” proliferation”, all standards combined, increased by 15% under its first five-year term.

44.1 million words

Normative productivism is mechanically linked to legislative productivism, itself encouraged by the “majority fact” [le fait que l’Assemblée nationale présente souvent une nette majorité], allowing the executive to push through its projects. To the continuous production of laws, our administration, remarkably efficient, will always respond, sometimes to the brink of exhaustion, by producing application decrees (13 application decrees per law on average). Whether Parliament is in perfect symmetry with the executive or even, in the event of opposition between the two Chambers, protected by certain provisions of the V^e Republic (in case of failure of the conciliation procedure on a bill, the government can leave the last word to the National Assembly), parliamentary activity increases the rate of entry and exit of texts.

You have 73.18% of this article left to read. The following is for subscribers only.