Deregulation à la française

This blog reported in March that the French president, Mr N. Sarkozy, was personally committed to some deregulation, seemingly far ahead of all other politicians in France on this topic.Two more public remarks show that Mr Sarkozy is not forgetting this dossier and wants change before the end of his mandate:

• During his live TV interview on 16 November, while listing policies for the last two years of his administration, and in a short list of four topics, he mentioned deregulation (in French “délégiférer”) but without using the word, giving a specific example of town planning. Strangely, this item was absent from all reports of the event published by the media and was only quoted in Le Monde’s pre-event analysis;
• Two months ago, he had been more explicit in a public speech where he said he was reflecting on the possibility of asking Parliament to take time in 2011 to devote time to rescind obsolete laws. He compared the legal corpus to a “legal cathedral… where no-one can find the exit”.

We know that France has for some time been primarily sensitive to "normative inflation". The president's approach is in keeping with recent simplification laws and is mainly directed at clearing the legal body and improving access to the law for citizens.