Bayrou wants to give back to prefects their power of exemption to simplify the actions of local authorities

Invited by senators to the "Assises de la simplification" (Simplification Conference), the Prime Minister indicated that the government intended to "respect its commitments" in order to "reduce the number of new standards" and "improve their quality," two years after signing a charter of commitments with the Senate.

"I believe that the prefect's power of exemption, the power of interpretation, of implementing basic common sense decisions, must be returned to the prefect," he explained, promising to act "in the coming days and weeks" while refusing to resort to the "chainsaw."

The departmental prefect, under the authority of the regional prefect, would thus become the "regulator of all state action in the territory," added Mr. Bayrou, criticizing the "multiplication of actors" who represent the state in the territories, a source of "cacophony" according to him.

A bill to this effect has just been tabled in the Senate.

LR Senator Rémy Pointereau, one of the sponsors of the text, explained that he wanted to "create new legislative regimes for derogation from standards", citing in particular the possibility "of derogating from the environmental code in order to preserve the existence of hydraulic structures such as mills".

The text is accompanied by "securing the use of this right of derogation in criminal matters".

These measures also aim to facilitate the establishment of businesses and to accelerate the mayors' housing projects.

For his part, the Minister of Regional Planning, François Rebsamen, announced the launch on April 28 of a "simplification process for the benefit of local authorities," which will allow 72 simplification proposals to be tested.

This meeting will be an opportunity to present the conclusions of the mission entrusted in the autumn to the mayor (DVD) of Charleville-Mézières, Boris Ravignon, author a year ago of a report on "the cost of the administrative millefeuille".

Housing Minister Valérie Létard considered it necessary to produce a more "readable" standard in order to facilitate the production of housing.

In addition to the bill on simplifying economic life, which returns to the National Assembly on Tuesday, it intends to rely on a text from MPs Liot which will be examined in mid-May.

"The real potential for simplification lies not only in urban planning in the strict sense, but also in its articulation with environmental or heritage law," she acknowledged, however, citing "water management plans that impose compensation three times the impacted areas" or "archaeological digs that sometimes take a year to begin, blocking project leaders."

The National Council for the Evaluation of Standards estimates the additional regulatory cost for local authorities at 2,5 billion euros for 2022 and 1,6 billion for 2023.