XXXII — The administrative millefeuille

Chapitre XXXII

THE ADMINISTRATIVE MILLEFEUILLE

This document would not be complete without addressing a scourge that plagues modern democracies: the multiplication of administrative levels and the regulatory frenzy that accompanies them.

32.1 — The problem of levels

Municipalities, intercommunalities, departments, regions, State, Europe… Levels overlap, competencies overlap, budgets intertwine. Result: no one is really responsible for anything. Each level can pass the buck to the other. Duplications proliferate. Bureaucracies self-feed.

32.2 — The regulatory frenzy

At each level, civil servants justify their existence by producing rules. To plant a tree, you need a form. To cut it down, another. To build a garden shed, an authorization. To modify it, another authorization. Forms overlap, contradict each other, require documents that other administrations already hold.

This regulatory frenzy is not an accident. It is the logical consequence of a system where each administration must prove its usefulness to survive. The more it regulates, the more indispensable it seems. Bureaucracy is an organism whose primary function is its own reproduction.

32.3 — Reform principles

A few coherent approaches with the proposed system:

Strict subsidiarity principle. Each competency is assigned to ONE level only, as close to the citizen as possible. No shared competencies, no co-financing that dilutes responsibility. If it’s the municipality, it’s the municipality alone. If it’s the region, it’s the region alone.

Tax competition. If each level has its own budget (and counts in the global ceiling), citizens can compare the efficiency of each level. An over-administered region loses its taxpayers to a lighter neighbor. The market also disciplines territories.

Merger from below. Municipalities can merge voluntarily to reach critical mass. Intercommunalities can become full-fledged municipalities. The incentive is fiscal: mergers that reduce costs free up budget.

Constitutional suppression of levels. We could constitutionalize a maximum number of levels—for example: municipalities, regions, State. Three levels maximum. Departments and intercommunalities would be absorbed or eliminated.

32.4 — Regulatory guillotining

For regulatory frenzy, a simple rule: any new regulation must eliminate two existing ones (or one of equivalent weight, measured in compliance cost). This is the “one in, two out” principle applied in some countries.

Supplemented by:

Silence means acceptance. If the administration does not respond within a fixed period (for example 30 days), the request is deemed accepted. This reverses the burden: it is the administration that must hurry, not the citizen who must wait.

Mandatory interoperability. An administration cannot request a document that another administration already holds. Databases communicate. The citizen does not serve as a carrier pigeon between services.

Relevance audit. Each regulation has an expiration date (for example 10 years). At the deadline, it must be explicitly renewed by a vote, with evaluation of its real impact. Obsolete rules die automatically.

32.5 — Limits of the present document

This worksite remains partially open. The budgetary lock mechanisms proposed here slow proliferation—less money means fewer civil servants to produce rules. But they do not automatically dismantle the existing.

The transition (chapter XXXIII) will have to include a major regulatory cleanup: a complete audit, massive deletion of useless texts, radical simplification. It is a titanic task, but indispensable. You cannot liberate a people while leaving intact the thicket of rules that hinders them.

32.6 — Case study (empirical example): The British and Canadian “One-In, Two-Out”

The United Kingdom (2011) and Canada (2012) adopted rules requiring the elimination of existing regulations for any new rule created [105][106]. These mechanisms offer a precedent for “regulatory guillotining.”

What worked

Slowdown of regulatory inflation. In the United Kingdom, the net cost of new regulations for businesses became negative under the “One-In, One-Out” then “One-In, Two-Out” regime [105]. The administrative burden stopped growing.

Culture of cost-benefit calculation. Each ministry must now quantify the compliance cost of its proposals. This discipline has forced reflection on the real usefulness of rules.

Measurable reductions in Canada. The Canadian “Red Tape Reduction Act” has eliminated thousands of administrative formalities [106]. Compliance time for businesses has decreased.

Increased transparency. Governments publish annual reports on the regulatory stock. Evolution is measurable and citizens can compare.

Strong political signal. The adoption of these rules sent a clear message: over-regulation is a recognized problem, not a fatality.

What poses problems

Creative circumventions. Ministries have learned to reclassify “regulations” as “guidelines” or “recommendations” to escape counting [105]. The formal stock decreases, but administrative pressure can persist otherwise.

Quality vs quantity. Eliminating two small rules to create one big one does not necessarily reduce the burden. Regulatory “weight” is difficult to measure objectively.

No cleanup of the existing. These rules apply to new regulations, not to the historical stock. Decades of obsolete standards remain in place [106].

Political exemptions. Regulations deemed “priority” (health, environment, safety) are often exempted. The rule becomes partial.

No constitutional lock. These are administrative rules, not laws. A new government can abandon them.

What we keep from the British/Canadian model

• The ratio principle: creating a rule requires eliminating some
• The culture of costing compliance costs
• Transparency on the evolution of the regulatory stock
• Accountability of ministries producing norms

What we improve

• More ambitious ratio: “one in, two out” rather than “one in, one out”
• Measurement by compliance cost: not just the number of rules, but their real weight
• Application to the existing stock: the relevance audit with expiration date forces cleanup of the existing
• Constitutional lock: the ratio principle is enshrined in the constitution
• No categorical exemptions: all regulations count, even environmental or health

What we do not adopt

• Limitation to new rules: our system includes an automatic expiration mechanism for the existing
• Political exemptions: no free pass for “priority” subjects
• Administrative fragility: our system is constitutional, not regulatory