If you feel like, in these days of vacation, taking the course of a coach,
who would promise you to refine your silhouette, to get you in shape and
make you more agile, would you agree to blindly follow the
prescribed requirements, painful exercises and austere punishments of an obese
coach? No, obviously; you would ask him to begin to apply to himself his own
advice before providing it to others.
It is however what the State asks us today: not avaricious of its advice, of
its authoritarian advice, to the taxpayers, to the consumers, to the
employees, to the voters, to the citizens: save more, consume better, do not
smoke any more, reduce your alcohol consumption, oil; agree, to save your
company or your retirement, to work longer hours, to reduce the increase in
your wages, to move; accept even flexibility, fluidity, precariousness,
vulnerability. It is a question, of survival for the country, we are told.
Very well; and some of these adviceS deserve to be followed. But what really
does the one who claims to direct the life of others do? Few things. Far too
little. And when he does them, they are poorly done. For example, the
replacement, often justified, of a civil servant in two leaving for
retirement, and fewer branches in the Central Administrations, penalize
sometimes far too much the social ministries; and they would be better
received and more effective as part of an overall reform of state functions,
which would also prevent the current drain of talents in the the high civil
service. For the rest, nothing is making progress: the necessary merger of
the public agencies has advanced very little in certain organizations
(Chambers of commerce, 1% housing, courts, vocational training
organisations) and not at all in others (social housing offices, communal
and departmental administrations). Nothing is launched either to implement
the computerization of the public services worthy of what is done elsewhere.
And if these reforms are not progressing, it is not, as we hear it, to
maintain the quality of the public service, which is deteriorating, but not
to touch the privileges and the private income of a few prominent
citizens who are the only beneficiaries.
Finally, supreme daring, they speak also, about financing the extension of
these wastes, with a new loan, which will naturally be financed, ultimately, by
those who are asked today to accept the reform of their lifestyle and the
reduction of their purchasing power.
This is obviously unacceptable. And the least that the State can do is to
make the commitment, as a sign of goodwill, to refund this new loan, and
serve the interests of its debt through savings on its lifestyle. They were
already studied in details and we know very well what a greater efficiency can
bring in managing public services.
It is during the summer, when the budget is fixed for next year, that
everything can still be decided. If nothing is done, the citizens could one
day dismiss their coach. And take charge.