Last March, in the middle of the presidential campaign, the Senate made explosive revelations about the use of consulting firms, including the famous McKinsey, about their influence in the heart of the State, which resulted in a figure: nearly one billion euros spent in 2021 on consultancy assignments.
This report has just given rise to a bill, tabled yesterday in the Senate. A text written by two very different elected officials – the communist Eliane Assassi and Arnaud Bazin of the Republicans. They are supported by 14 other senators. The bill, composed of 19 articles, aims to better regulate the use of consulting firms, and for there to be more transparency when the State calls on them. For example, by publishing each year and in open data the list of services ordered.
>> Reducing the use of consulting firms, a headache
The senators also want to oblige these firms to report to the High Authority for the transparency of public life any conflicts of interest: that means transmitting the list of their clients other than the State. More comical proposal: oblige consultants to use only the French language, and to leave aside Anglicisms.
In a letter addressed to Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne, everyone asks her to have this bill adopted urgently, this summer, by initiating “the accelerated procedure” to reduce the duration of the debates. And it’s devilishly clever. In doing so, the Senate takes on the executive at its own game, at a time when in a composite Assembly without a majority, Elisabeth Borne calls on each political family to play the game of national interest.
The senators say shit: here is a text that can be voted on at the Luxembourg Palace by the right and the united left. And a text which in the National Assembly can also find a majority, between the deputies of Nupes, those of the Republicans and those of the National Rally.
“The fact of sending the letter to Madame Borne, to request the accelerated procedure, is politicsassumes a senator. She’s going to be in trouble to say no, it would be clumsy on her part.” However, the executive had hoped to get away with it so far with a circular which plans to reduce state council spending by 15%.
Elisabeth Borne’s room for maneuver is not enormous. If the executive does not program the text this summer, the senators can impose it on it in the fall. They have the possibility of including texts in the parliamentary agenda. In Le Parisien-Today in FranceGérard Larcher, President of the Senate, warns today: “We will be brought, he said, to make proposals”. “We will see what fate the government will reserve for them.”