Bercy is preparing its Simplification law for entrepreneurs, amid the anger of farmers

"People can't stand the paperwork anymore! It's exhausting, exasperating, nervously trying...": in the Viry-Châtillon theater (Essonne), to the packed orchestra, the Minister of the Economy Bruno The Mayor explained on Tuesday to around a hundred business leaders that he understood them, during one of the "Simplification Meetings" organized since November, as close as possible to the public concerned.

Last Tuesday, the President of the Republic Emmanuel Macron also asked the government to put an end to “useless standards”: “this is the France of common sense, rather than the France of hassle (...). , we have had too many taboos,” he said.

Especially since administrative difficulties cost businesses around 3% of GDP each year.

In addition to these Simplification Meetings, hosted three times by Bruno Le Maire in person, but also 43 other times by five parliamentarians "pilots" of this project, Bercy consulted 75 professional organizations on their wishes for simplification.

As with other reforms, the first Pact Simplification law of 2019, or the Green Industry law last year, the government wants to “listen to citizens without arriving with prejudices”, observes Bercy.

A citizen consultation was thus carried out over six weeks at the end of 2023 by the site make.org, specializing in “digital solutions to improve democracy”, and entitled “Entrepreneurs: what concrete measures to simplify your life?”.

The results were presented on Wednesday: the consultation registered 29.047 participants, generated 5.447 proposals - "a 300-page book" according to make.org -, and more than 734.000 votes on these proposals. The simplification of procedures is unanimously demanded, as well as the adaptation of the administration to users.

“His apples, his tomatoes”

Bruno Le Maire, who wishes, according to Bercy, to "draw conclusions very quickly" from these consultations "through concrete and ambitious measures", announced that he now wanted to put "the administration at the service of citizens, on the basis of trust".

On Thursday, he will return to this theme when Michel Picon, new president of U2P, one of the three representative employers' organizations, takes office. The CPME and Medef have already made their suggestions known. Last Friday, Patrick Martin, the president of Medef, expressed confidence that this attempt to simplify standards “would be the right one”.

As farmers' anger spreads, the government seems to be banking on the future law as one of the elements of the response.

Agricultural subjects were "at least well taken into account in the reflection", according to Bercy, stressing that the FNSEA and the Agricultural Cooperative were part of the federations consulted on the future law and responded to it in December. The Ministry of Agriculture has been “embedded from the beginning” in the reflection, also assures Bercy.

Tuesday in Viry-Châtillon, Bruno Le Maire sent several messages to farmers, although they were poorly represented in an audience of small business owners from Essonne. Minister of Agriculture himself from 2009 to 2012, he said he was “resolutely on their side” in the face of the multiplication of standards.

He also considered that France must "return to a nation of production", not only of "its cars, its planes and its satellites", but also of "its apples, its tomatoes, its meat, its milk and its agricultural products" . He also indicated that he was ready to “go further” to facilitate the transfer of land.

After the submission of their own report by the five parliamentarians at the beginning of February, and the arbitrations of what will be put into the law at the same deadline, Bercy should have drawn up the Simplification text at the end of March which will be presented to the Council of Ministers "before the summer", according to the ministry.