“We are making a radical proposal to divide by 100 the number of standards that govern our lives in our country”, declared on Sunday November 13 on franceinfo the philosopher Gaspard Koenig, on the eve of the first meeting of his political movement “Simple”, launched six months ago and which advocates a simplification of the laws and the end of “bureaucratic oppression”.
Less than six months before the presidential election, the philosopher “wants to be able to weigh, to be able to introduce a balance of power” in this campaign. The form of his engagement “will depend on the dynamic which will engage or not” after this meeting, but it does not rule out presenting candidates for legislative elections, for example.
franceinfo: You promise to present radical simplification proposals. Which ones?
Gaspard Koenig: This first meeting is based on a long field work, when I crossed France on horseback and then with this movement founded six months ago. I took a tour of France of bureaucratic oppression. Who suffers it? That he has done ? Who is responsible ? It is a sea serpent of French politics, we know it since Pompidou or even Montaigne and Tocqueville. Politically, it is always the last wheel of the coach. However, I think it is a completely matrix subject. If we manage to simplify people’s lives, we will draw a lot of threads, in terms of purchasing power, security, we will resolve a lot of tensions and allow people to regain a form of daily and practical freedom.
We will therefore make a radical proposal that we have called the Portalis project, in reference to this jurist chosen by Napoleon to remake the Civil Code from the imbroglio of feudal law, it is to divide by 100 the number of rules that govern our life in the country. And for that, I propose not to wonder about which standards to remove, but on which standards to keep, to find a form of responsibility in a system which is today blocked and very unfair. The first to suffer from over-administration are the weakest, who cannot afford audit firms, tax lawyers and all these intermediaries.
Is simplification doing social justice?
Completely. If it is true, as Lacordaire says, that the law liberates and that freedom oppresses, too many laws produce the opposite excess. This puts arbitrariness at the heart of the system since it is the one who holds the key or the one who knows the mysteries of the system, who may or may not bring you into it. And basically, having the project of making a law that is readable, understandable by all, with constant rights, is to do a bit like Protestants do with the Bible, to allow everyone to read the fundamental text without having to go through an intermediary, which today is very often the political class or the administration itself.
You hold your first meeting on Monday evening, your book comes out on Wednesday, are you thinking of the presidential election?
It is not an election that I like very much. You said I was a liberal, the Liberals from Raymond Aron to Jean-François Revel have always basically criticized this kind of very plebiscite system which is based on a man’s personality. On the other hand, I wanted to make a real political party because I know that we can have a good idea, go see the different candidates who smile at you, and then, all that is to be put away.
“I want to be able to weigh, to be able to introduce a balance of power. That’s why I’m launching this party. That’s why I hope to have militants. We must weigh in the presidential election.”
Gaspard Koenigto franceinfo
Then what form will it take? Will it be a Hulot charter? Will we be presenting candidates? Which ? What election? Because there is not only the presidential election in the country. We’ll see. And that will depend a lot on the dynamics that will be triggered or not and whether our intuition or not is validated.
Does simplification make a complete political project? What proposals on employment, ecology or safety?
What is interesting is to see that we can draw a lot of threads when we scratch this subject. Simplifying means first of all giving back a lot of economic activities to the country, since all the activities that are currently inhibited can be deployed. The cost of over-administration in the country is sometimes estimated at 3% of GDP. It is also to restore well-being and happiness somewhere. So I also think in terms of living together, it’s something that will make people get along with each other.
But that too leads to thinking about structural solutions. I am thinking of universal income which is a simplification of tax law and social law, by automating aid to no longer fill in completely aberrant RSA files which today torture the weakest. It means, for example, granting more autonomy to local authorities, having more the possibility of organizing referendums of local popular initiative, having more fiscal autonomy also being able to levy taxes, it is always the same idea of decentralize power.
Everyone finds themselves in a very authoritarian, very vertical management of the country, where no one trusts the smallest link in the chain, the individual, the municipality, the small business, the craftsman to find him. – even the right solutions. It is high time that this path to freedom arose because this system is no longer sustainable.