Amélie de Montchalin pushed in the Senate over the costing of her savings announcements

This hearing before the Senate's commission of inquiry into state agencies and operators, chaired by Communist MP Pierre Barros, was highly anticipated, with the minister promising to provide details on the hoped-for savings, although without necessarily convincing anyone.

During an interview on Cnews/Europe 1 on April 27, she announced a "clean-up" in the organization of the State as part of the 2026 budget project, with the merger or elimination of a third of the State's operators, with the exception of universities, which employ "180.000 people", or "more than gendarmes in the country".

She had said she wanted to achieve "2 to 3 billion euros" in savings. Her office later told AFP that the savings were expected "in the medium term," "by 2027."

"We asked for clarification on how you arrived at these figures (...) it is clear that the documents you sent are very general, even a little confusing," Pierre Barros criticized.

These elements "did not allow us to arrive at the various figures that you were able to cite," supported the LR rapporteur of the commission, Christine Lavarde, mentioning in particular the figure of 180.000 agents.

Amélie de Montchalin defended herself by stating that she had announced this amount of savings with the "objective" of achieving them by 2027: "Those were my comments on the media you quoted," she said.

Of the 180.000 public sector employees, this is the number of employees according to the "employment plan of operators when we exclude the higher education mission and France Travail," she assured.

Regarding the "third" of operators that she said she wanted to eliminate or merge, the minister explained that these were the organizations affected by possible mergers or eliminations, but also by reorganizations, reductions in funding or whose certain missions could be entrusted directly to ministries.

"Changes in scope" and "a third which is in fact an indicative figure," Christine Lavarde summed up: it is "quite different from saying 'merger or abolition'," she judged.