It was the text of all storms: a painful preparation of almost fifteen months, a passage to the enamelled parliament of incidents, until the adoption of a motion of rejection prior to the National Assembly, of the ministers who threaten To resign, an appeal to the equally tumultuous Constitutional Council. On January 26, 2024, at the end of this Homeric battle, the law “to control immigration, improving integration” was promulgated to Official Journal.
End of history? No way. A year has passed. This law requires 30 application measures, but to date, according to information from the government, only 16 decrees have been published, or 53 %. Some, for example on “the remuneration threshold subject to which a stranger is issued a multi-year residence permit bearing the mention ‘qualified talent’ of a maximum duration of four years”, on “the remuneration threshold that Justify the foreigner who benefits from an assignment decision “or over the term of the mandate of the members of the National Court of Asylum, were to be published in May or July 2024: we are still waiting for them …
Their exact name is execution decree: they are essential for a law to come into real application and thus modify the lives of people. Voting by parliament and the validity exam by the Constitutional Council are only intermediate stages. The government is, according to a case law from the Council of State, supposed to take these decrees in “reasonable deadlines”: six months on average, up to nine, beyond time begins to become long. Any citizen can in theory enjoin the executive to act and the latter is illegal when he does not. Worse, if damage arises from the non-application of a law passed by Parliament, the citizen is entitled to request compensation. True legal obligation, therefore, but great political uncertainty.
The exception of the pension reform
In cruising rhythm, it is already not flamboyant. “Between the slowness of the executive, the volunteers by the successors of texts taken by the predecessors and the brakes of the administration”, according to the expression of an old road in public life, habit was taken from Stop slowly. But the year 2024, with its slew of Prime Ministers and its dissolution, which led to particularly harmful instability in the life of the State and its services, can be hoisted to the rank of horribilis. Online loss is therefore spectacular. We underestimate the underground consequences of the episodes of the last months, which could be summed up in a word, even two: immobility or blocking-when “the effectiveness of the action” or the quest for “results” are a magic formula as much as digging in official speeches.
The president of the National Assembly, Yaël Braun-Pivet, established in early 2024 a barometer of the application of laws. And each time a new Prime Minister arrives (that is to say at a pace supported by the times that run), it reminds them that this tool exists now and that it is advisable to be vigilant. For legislature 2022-2024, the average rate is 82 %. With a few anomalies that are obvious, emphasizing the gap between words and acts. The law for the full employment of December 2023: 32 % of the necessary decrees have been published to date. That of January 2023 aimed at developing the training of midwives: 20 %. That on the acceleration of the production of renewable energies of March 2023: 49 %. That of May 2024 to secure and regulate the digital space: 14 %. That of May 2024 aimed at strengthening the fight against sectarian aberrations: 0 %. Can do better …
This is the other emblem of this five -year term. The famous pension reform law (included in the Social Security Amending Security financing bill for 2023) is in working order: 87 of the 91 application decrees were published. This time there was no delay. The law is applied, the law is executed, but it is already called into question. Less than three years after his promulgation, Prime Minister François Bayrou undertook to modify it to take into account the work of his famous conclave of the social partners. Dura Lex, Sed Lex. We would be tempted to specify: that it is hard to be a law.
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