The affair had embarrassed the presidential camp, then in the middle of the campaign for the re-election of President Emmanuel Macron… A week after its adoption in the Law Committee, the deputies seized, Wednesday January 31, in public session the proposal of law aimed at further regulating the State’s use of consulting firms.
The text, adopted at first reading by the Senate in October 2022, takes up numerous proposals from an explosive report by former communist senator Eliane Assassi.
Published in March 2022, this document described the use by the State of consulting firms as a “sprawling” phenomenon. Already accused of having dragged on to include the text on the agenda of the National Assembly, the government was criticized on Tuesday by the GDR group (with a communist majority) of having “emptied all its substance” .
Among the more than 200 amendments tabled, the executive proposes in particular to return to the ban on using private firms to write studies on the impact of laws, and also wants to exempt itself from the obligation to present both years a report detailing its internal consulting resources.
Extend the text to larger communities
Like the Socialist and Renaissance deputies, the government, on the other hand, wants to extend the scope of the text to larger local authorities, such as metropolises, departments or regions.
A possible extension which had already been debated and ruled out in committee, due to lack of sufficiently precise data on the amount of consulting expenses of local elected officials.
Several deputies also wish to reinstate the obligation to submit a declaration of interests for private consultants who carry out missions for the State. The reporting obligations of consulting specialists have in fact been reduced by the committee. As the bill currently stands, it would be enough for them to complete a declaration attesting to the absence of a conflict of interest, rather than a declaration of interests, which is necessarily more detailed.
The GDR group and Les Républicains finally want to reinstate another provision deleted in committee which provides that the new rules apply to all current consulting contracts, and not only to those signed after the promulgation of the text.
The debates will begin at 9:30 p.m. in the hemicycle, and will undoubtedly extend into Thursday given the number of amendments tabled. The adoption of a text identical to that of the Senate is highly improbable and the bill should therefore be subject to a second reading in the Senate and the National Assembly in the coming months.