To quote a good word from his close friend, François Hollande, whom he served from 2014 to 2017 under the auspices of the Élysée and who he receives in the summer in the Var, “simplification is complicated”.
With Is this really necessary, Minister? (Ed. Albin Michel, 240 p., 20.90 euros) described as “Back-to-school event book”Jean-Pierre Jouyet launches into a black list of “legislative and normative inflations” in the French way while providing avenues for reform in a country whose force of inertia is well known…
Although he retains several responsibilities (mutualist group, investment funds, private bank, etc.), the senior civil servant, who has passed through a multitude of strata, declares himself today “simple citizen” to judge “republican monarchs” et “ills inherited from the Ancien Régime”.
He discusses it calmly, self-critical but never giving lessons, during a short stay in Croisia. Between two Parisian promotional meetings and the very unwelcome announcement of a future judgment for “favoritism and embezzlement of public funds” when he was general director of the Caisse des Dépôts et Consignations between 2012 and 2014. Facts that he “contest” formally.
What are the beginnings of your installation in La Croix-Valmer?
I did my military service in Draguignan and when I was younger I frequented Gigaro, already in the company of François Hollande. Our favorite site with my wife. We therefore chose to acquire a house here in 2015.
The passage on the Borne government which you decry as the most expensive of the Fifth Republic with its cost of 174 billion and its 565 advisors, was repeated everywhere. Did you think this would be the highlight of the book?
No, it’s reductive. What struck me most is what exists in terms of government structure and what the ministerial cabinets represent, whereas in 2017 Emmanuel Macron committed to a maximum of five advisors per member of the government. In the end Nicolas Sarkozy was the only one to reduce the number of state civil servants, but without changing the structures… Bercy, the Quai d’Orsay, the Interior or National Education remained major “feudalities” and any drop in budget is a symbol of a decline in power… Overstaffing and duplication also remain a specialty of our public services…
Even your friend François Hollande’s “shock of simplification” was overcome by the system…
I take my share of responsibility when I was secretary general of the Élysée, but for me there have never been major politicians who took care of administrative simplification, with sufficient authority to simplify procedures and relationships between ministries.
Reform is considered a policy of rigor in France. If tomorrow we applied the Canadian model of 1993, would it be the barricades and the Revolution?
The Prime Minister at the time, Jean Chrétien, undertook his reforms in consultation with the population, traveling across Canada to explain them. In France it is very difficult to act like this, because there are not enough relationships between the government and the intermediary bodies. Added to this is citizen reluctance for anything that concerns change.
Isn’t it in vain when we note that the merger of the regions resulted in more than 2 billion in operating expenses from 2015 to 2018?
The idea was to go further and reduce the operations of departments, metropolises and intercommunities… Except that François Hollande ultimately did not run. We have remained with the existing structures, with the addition of increasing administrations!
By noting that no more than 5.7% of obligations to leave the territory (OQTF) are executed, are you not playing into the hands of some?
Yes, but President Macron recently stressed that the procedures needed to be accelerated and he has a strong minister for this, Gérald Darmanin.
In the genre of “useless positions” left to the discretion of the president, you criticize the appointments of Agnès Buzyn or the Varois Christophe Castaner. You will make friends!
(Laughing) That’s true. Positions like that of president of the Mont-Blanc Tunnel Society have always been given either to people who have been beaten or to whom we wanted to “thank you”, these are purely honorary positions, extremely well paid but without real activity. Christophe Castaner benefits from it, just like Édouard Balladur before him…
To talk regarding a true friend, François Hollande, what activities does he do when he stays here?
We swim a lot and play tennis. Since he has a house in Tulle (where he married Julie Gayet in 2022, Editor’s note), he comes a little less regularly, but his links with the region remain strong since he had a family home in Mougins and his father died in Cannes.
Were you a spectator of the play A president shouldn’t say that taken from the eponymous investigation book and performed last weekend in Sainte-Maxime?
No. Especially since it would bring back memories that are difficult… I’ve had enough trouble with François Fillon because of this book… So nothing entertaining.
Isn’t this Fillon affair a bit like the plaster on Captain Haddock’s finger for you?
Yes but I regretted it. I told François Fillon, whom I respect a lot and with whom I have reconnected. We also have mutual friends, and I am happy that his situation is being reviewed and hopefully corrected.
This book is presented as the MEA culpa by Jean-Pierre Jouyet. Wouldn’t that be more of a plea?
It’s true I have my share of responsibilities, but I also participated in good reforms, public investment bank, euro, withholding tax… It’s a whole generation and a political-administrative group, which are responsible for the situation and the book sets out to show how real reform can be done while advocating for clear decentralization. Not a territorial millefeuille with a superposition of administrations at the local level.
Bio express
February 13, 1954: birth in Montreuil.
1980: leaves ENA, same promotion as François Hollande.
1988: chief of staff to Roger Fauroux, under Mitterrand.
1994: chief of staff of Jacques Delors, president of the European Commission.
2000: Director of the Treasury.
2005: head of the General Inspectorate of Finance department.
2007: Secretary of State for European Affairs.
2014: secretary general of the Élysée under François Hollande.
2017: Ambassador of France to the United Kingdom.
2020: applies for the position of Minister of State in Monaco
2024: plans to write his Memoirs.
