Anru, Anah, ARS... A bill from the Republicans (LR) in the Senate targets state agencies

Senators from Les Républicains have submitted a bill to tackle the "proliferation" of state agencies, including the National Housing, Urban Renewal and Sports Agencies, and the Regional Health Agencies (ARS), and to "refocus" their organization.

Registered on Monday by the services of the upper house and made public on Tuesday, the bill proposed by the LR group, the largest group in the Senate, aims to "rethink agency to strengthen public action".

Co-signed by the head of the group Mathieu Darnaud (Ardèche) and Senator Pauline Martin (Loiret), it stems from the work of an inquiry commission conducted in 2025 by LR Senator Christine Lavarde (Hauts-de-Seine), who had deplored the "lack of vision" of the State on the cost and efficiency of its agencies and operators.

The text "aims to make public action more legible, more effective and more responsible", according to its explanatory memorandum.

"It is not based on a logic of distrust towards public agencies and operators, some of which have demonstrated their usefulness, but on a desire to put an end to the proliferation of autonomous structures without real evaluation and to refocus the administrative organization around the State," the co-signatories add.

The LR group, which controls a large part of the agenda, hopes to put this text on the agenda for June, it told AFP, confirming information from Le Figaro.

Around twenty measures are proposed, including various eliminations of existing structures.

This includes abolishing the regional health agencies (ARS), transferring their powers to new decentralized services under the authority of the prefects.

The abolition of the National Housing Agency (Anah) and that of the National Agency for Urban Renewal (Anru) are also proposed, with their missions being redeployed in other structures or directly within the relevant ministries.

The same applies to the National Sports Agency (ANS) and the National Book Centre, whose activities would be taken over by the relevant ministries.

The French Agency for Environment and Energy Management (Ademe), whose operation has been criticized by several parties, would be "refocused" on its "economic missions".

The Senate inquiry commission estimated in July 2025 that the potential gains from reforming the organization of operators and agencies, "with public policies unchanged," would be approximately €540 million. Its work provided an overview of 434 operators, 317 advisory bodies, and 1.153 national public bodies.