What is the outcome for François Bayrou at the High Commission for Planning?

A senatorial report, published in September, looked at the four years of the High Commission for Planning (HCP), Bayrou presidency. With what results? Not very good, if we are to believe the parliamentarians’ conclusion: “To date, the contribution of the High Commission for Planning to the definition of public policies has not fully met the significant expectations that had been placed in this body at its inception. creation. »

Not very relevant notes

What went wrong? The reasons are less the resources granted to the institution (14 full-time jobs and €1.9 million operating budget in 2023) and the quantity of reports produced (18 strategic notes in four years) than the quality of the work carried out. “The vast majority of the strategic notes produced by the HCP are indistinguishable from the work of other administrative bodies responsible for expert and advisory missions,” the senators point out. Compared to the notes from France Stratégie, the Economic Analysis Council or the Economic, Social and Environmental Council, those of the HCP “may even appear much less precise and in-depth”.

The HCP excluded from certain decisions

In 2020, François Bayrou nevertheless defended the relevance of his institution’s reports. “The notes that we produced, on nuclear power, the debt, the reconquest of production or demography, for example, have, I believe, been useful to the president in his reflection. We have contributed to changing the public’s approach to these sensitive subjects. »

The briefing report, however, tells a different story. “While the HCP had defended in February 2021 a Marshall plan of around 200 billion euros, (…) it was not associated with either the development or the evaluation of the France 2030 plan of 54 billion euros, the implementation and monitoring of which were entrusted to the General Secretariat for Investment. »

The senators list more generally “several significant shortcomings”. The HCP “does not have any financial leverage”, has not produced any “publication on digital issues”, has a “limited interest in issues specific to youth” and “a defect in the planning approach, resulting in recommendations that are not very operational and do not present added value. » An “empty shell”, judge the most severe senators, for “embryonic” planning.

Bayrou’s multiple functions “confuse” the work

More anecdotally, the report returned to the personality of the president of the HCP. Certainly, François Bayrou exercised his function on a voluntary basis. But, the parliamentarians note, “the important political responsibilities that the High Commissioner continues to assume” (president of the MoDem, mayor of Pau, presence on the Renaissance list in the European elections) “confuse the reception of the work” of the HCP “for a body aiming at a certain distance from short-term considerations. The senators were also moved by the opening of a local branch of the HCP in Pau, justified above all by a “motive of personal convenience for the High Commissioner”.

Following this senatorial report, Michel Barnier decided in October to merge France Stratégie and the High Commission for Planning, with the aim of “maintaining a real capacity for foresight” and making savings. François Bayrou will not have had time to take charge of this new XXL structure: he has since been appointed to Matignon.