In Chartres, François Bayrou gives full powers to prefects to slash state spending

The right, which has made state agencies its obsessive target in its quest to reduce public spending, welcomed the news with joy. On Tuesday, July 8, during a visit to Chartres (Eure-et-Loir), the Prime Minister outlined the contours of a territorial reform planned to strengthen the power of prefects.

In concrete terms, the prefects, the representatives of the State at the departmental level and whose power of appointment belongs to Emmanuel Macron, will see their prerogatives strengthened: they will have their say in the appointment of the heads of State services, therefore of territorial agencies, and will be able to evaluate them.

On this basis, the prefect will also have the power to "redirect a certain number of expenses, for example personnel belonging to this or that agency," François Bayrou specified.

This means that senior officials who report directly to the Élysée will have the power of life and death over autonomous agencies, which sometimes produce standards and regulations in areas as varied as health, the environment and even heritage.

These standards, in fact, have been the target of a thorough unraveling in Parliament for several months, led by the "common core" groups (Macronie and "Les Républicains") with the fierce support of the National Rally. The so-called "economic simplification" law, adopted in its first reading by Parliament on June 17, has thus eased the constraints weighing on the industry in terms of biodiversity protection and land artificialization.

Several agencies, including the Urban Policy Observatory and the Natural Spaces Observatory, are threatened if the bill is finally passed. Instead of directly liquidating new agencies, which must be done through legislation, strengthening the prefects requires only a revised decree.

And it allows for the elimination of voting in the Chamber. "When there are stupid standards or standards that do not correspond to life on the ground, we can deviate from these standards. For this too, prefects must be protected in the exercise of this freedom," François Bayrou said happily in Chartres.

This new type of prefect is in line with Emmanuel Macron's wish, formulated in March 2024, to make senior territorial civil servants "state bosses" who manage their departmental perimeter according to quantified objectives.

This announcement also comes a week before the presentation of the main points of the 2026 budget, expected on July 15. The Prime Minister is seeking to make 40 billion euros in savings by reducing public spending.

According to Public Accounts Minister Amélie de Montchalin, reducing the number of agencies could free up €3 billion by 2027 – a figure disputed by a cross-party Senate report on the issue. But if austerity can help favor industry at the expense of the ecological transition, the bourgeois bloc will not turn its nose up at it.