Almost a month to the day after the abolition of the ENA announced by Emmanuel Macron, it is another totem of the Republic that the government has decided to attack this Thursday, May 6: that of the prefectural body.
During a videoconference in the presence of several hundred prefects and sub-prefects, Prime Minister Jean Castex announced the gradual disappearance of the body of prefects and sub-prefects, as reported on Friday by the Acteurs Publics site.
Read also: Removal of the body of prefects: the executive wants to have a free hand to appoint whoever he wants
If the function as such is doomed to endure insofar as the State still relies on these senior officials to represent it in the regions and departments and to implement government policies, the special statute which guides the course prefects throughout their careers will disappear.
Information revealed by
Public Actors
which specifies that the function tends to become a job on which one would be seconded for a time, as civil administrators are today on sub-prefect positions.
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The idea is also, as recalled by the prefect Cyrille Schott Honorary region in an article in
Le Figaro
on Friday, to "
functionalize
" the post of prefect, that is to say there appoint
"non-professional"
under covered by openness to civil society.
But for the honorary prefect of 70 years,
"the inféodation to the power of the entrants, deprived of the statutory guarantees of autonomy of their predecessors and chosen by virtue of political criteria, will be very strong
".
A reform desired by public opinion, according to Gérald Darmanin
The head of government, who was accompanied Thursday by the Minister of the Interior Gérald Darmanin and the Minister of transformation and the public service Amélie de Montchalin, would also have hinted that there would exist, for these senior officials already holding the rank , a right of option to remain prefect or become general administrator. And if they still have to be managed by the Minister of the Interior, the prefects will be under the control of the future interministerial delegation to the Higher State Management (Diese). A measure that is part of the major reform of the senior civil service decided by the President of the Republic last April. Still according to
Public Actors
, the Minister of the Interior would have focused on a reform desired by public opinion when Amélie de Montchalin would have insisted on mobility, diversity and training.
To read also: Abolition of the ENA: the pitfalls of a reform
Although Jean Castex did not directly use the term “suppression of the body”, the prefects and many politicians interpreted it thus.
From then on, the controversy sets in.
In reaction to this announcement, Jean-Louis Thiériot, LR deputy for Seine-et-Marne denounced on Twitter a “
dismantling of the State
” and a “
weakening of authority
”.
“
Prefect is a profession that can be learned from job to job,
” he said.
“
But why this need to destroy the last pillars that still hold our country?
»Asked Daniel Spagnou, the mayor of Sisteron and former deputy for Alpes-de-Haute-Provence. Valérie Boyer, Senator LR of Bouches-du-Rhône and honorary deputy estimated that
"after the abolition of the ENA, the abolition of the prefectural body is still an attack, a contempt for the general interest and meritocracy"
.
In a series of tweets published this Friday, the founding president of the UPR, François Asselineau, judged the announcement of the abolition of the body of prefects as
"very worrying",
since it
"aims to tragically weaken the State in the face of to local elected officials and to appoint henchmen of power ”
.
"It would be wrong to celebrate such decisions taken with a bulldozer and which consist in bringing down centuries-old structures which have ensured the backbone and the proper functioning of the State,"
he said. .
The announcement of Jean Castex comes precisely at the time when France commemorates the bicentenary of the death of Napoleon, to which it owes the existence of this prefectural body. Having become First Consul after his coup d'état of November 9, 1799, often abbreviated as the “coup d'état of 18 Brumaire”, Napoleon Bonaparte then decided on an in-depth reform of the organization of the State. Thus on February 17, 1800, he created the office of prefect (law of 28 Pluviôse year VIII). In each department, the "
prefect will be responsible for administration alone"
, it was written.