PM G. ATTAL 'S SPEECH AMID STATE'S REFORM OVER DE-BUREAUCRATIZING

USPA NEWS - We publish the full text of the Speech delivered by PM, Attal, as it was delivered. “ Source: Office of Prime Minister, Gabriel Attal, Matignon in a following publication.
Only the statement is authentic.

“Mr. Minister, dear Stanislas, Madam Minister, dear Marina, Mr. Prefect, Mr. Mayor, Madam Deputy, dear Maud Bregeon, Madam Deputy, dear Céline Calvez, Mr. Senator, Mr. President of the centrist group, dear Hervé Marseille, Mr. Deputy, dear Pierre Cazeneuve, Ladies and Gentlemen, Thank you for being present today, and I join you with the two ministers Stanislas Guerini and Marina Ferrari, at the end of an interministerial committee on transformation public. We looked at these transformation issues at length. Looking at the History of our country often means looking at the History of the State. It is through the State that our Nation was built, fortified, consolidated. It is with the State that our social model and our public services, which make us unique and our pride, were built. It is to the State, still today, that our fellow citizens turn in the event of difficulty or crisis. And it is very often from the State that solutions, support, and impetus come." PM Attal declared

REMARKS DELIVERD BY P.M GABRIEL ATTAL OVER TRANSFORM THE STATE DEBUREAUCRATIZE TO SIMPLIFY USE AI TO SERVE THE FRENCH PEOPLE
“Mr. Minister, dear Stanislas, Madam Minister, dear Marina, Mr. Prefect, Mr. Mayor, Madam Deputy, dear Maud Bregeon, Madam Deputy, dear Céline Calvez, Mr. Senator, Mr. President of the centrist group, dear Hervé Marseille, Mr. Deputy, dear Pierre Cazeneuve, Ladies and Gentlemen, Thank you for being present today, and I join you with the two ministers Stanislas Guerini and Marina Ferrari, at the end of an interministerial committee on transformation public. We looked at these transformation issues at length. Looking at the History of our country often means looking at the History of the State. It is through the State that our Nation was built, fortified, consolidated. It is with the State that our social model and our public services, which make us unique and our pride, were built. It is to the State, still today, that our fellow citizens turn in the event of difficulty or crisis

And it is very often from the State that solutions, support, and impetus come. We have this state culture – and we can be proud of it. But I draw two lessons from it.

The first is that we must be careful not to think that everything must go through the State, always and all the time. It's wrong. On the contrary, communities, businesses and civil society each play a decisive role and take an important place. The State must be at the same time a conductor, which coordinates the action of everyone. He must be a model, who sets an example, proposes, dares. It must facilitate, remove constraints and help everyone to act.
The second lesson I draw is that the State must always live up to the expectations of the French. Because if we fail to meet their expectations, we betray their trust. And trust in the State means trust in public action. So, to be up to the task, we constantly aim for efficiency, solutions and results. We aim for proximity, responses as close as possible to the territories and concerns of the French. This is precisely the role of the France Services spaces, which bring our public services as close as possible to our fellow citizens, wherever they come from.

This is why we wanted, with Ministers Stanislas Guerini and Marina Ferrari, to address you here. In reality, things are simple: an effective State is a State which obtains results. It’s a state that truly changes things. It is a state that responds to problems, and does not create additional problems. It is a State in contact, which knows the daily problems of the French, knows how to adapt and does not give uniform answers decided from a Parisian office. For decades, doubt had too often been instilled about the capacity of the State to live up to these missions.

P.M GABRIEL ATTAL LINED UP HIS GOVERNMENT’S AMBITION & ROADMAP FOR STATE REFORM

This is my Government’s ambition and roadmap for state reform: restoring confidence. Be exemplary. Be readable. And get results. Because transforming the State also means transforming France.

Since 2017, under the leadership of the President of the Republic, we have followed this course and obtained initial results to simplify public services. Results to simplify procedures, to improve daily life. Because it is indeed the concerns of the French that we started from:
• The deadlines for renewing a passport or an identity card had reached the alert level: we halved them in one year;

• Filing a complaint was often an obstacle course, forcing some to give it up: making an appointment at a police station is now possible in almost half of the departments, filing a complaint online will be generalized by June, and the video-complaint in October;
• Students in difficult situations had to pay the application to obtain a scholarship. It's finish. There are now no more application fees when applying for scholarships

• Administrative procedures were often Kafkaesque.

We have launched a massive simplification effort. An effort that continues. And, since 2019, 100 administrative forms have been simplified. I will stop there but I could go on for a long time and cite many other simplifications and transformations of daily life for our fellow citizens. Today, the challenge for me is to continue and amplify these transformations.
I have come to announce our roadmap for 2024 around three major ambitions.

My first ambition is to respond to a historic transition. It’s about being at the forefront of a revolution. It’s putting AI at the service of the French. Put AI at the service of our public services. I know: AI sometimes arouses enthusiasm, sometimes concerns. I say it to our fellow citizens: let’s choose AI, let’s not suffer from it. AI will revolutionize the world. It will revolutionize the way we work and even our most daily lives. Only a year and a half ago, in the United States, ChatGPT, an open-access generative AI, was launched. You may not know it, but in recent months, a quiet revolution has been taking place in our State. This is the artificial intelligence revolution. Today, I am announcing to you that we have developed a sovereign, French AI, which will revolutionize our public services and which we are now putting at the service of the French.

“ALBERT” IS THE FRENCH- STYLE AI, MADE BY ULRICHA GERMAN ENGENEER, PM ATTAL EXPLAINS

So let me tell you the story of this French-style AI. Her name is “Albert”. And Albert's father is called Ulrich, an engineer, trained in our country. After working for 9 years in the private sector, he met the teams of the Interministerial Digital Directorate on a public service forum. It is April 2023. Two months later, in June 2023, he writes the first lines of Albert's codes. With 8 of his engineering colleagues, he is the father of sovereign French AI. They have chosen to serve France and provide its public services with sovereign AI. By writing lines of code, these nine pioneers helped write the future of our country. Thanks to them, France is the first European country to inaugurate 100% sovereign AI and put it at the service of our public services. Because yes, AI will change the lives of millions of French people.

Today we are opening a new era for France and its public services. So concretely, for the State, the AI revolution will be four main elements: - simpler procedures; - faster deadlines; - more secure responses; - more effective public policies. And for agents and users alike, I am convinced, AI will be an opportunity to put humans back at the heart of our public services. To AI repetitive tasks, automatic tasks; to our agents the contact, the relationship. It is because artificial intelligence will free up even more time for our agents on administrative procedures that they will no longer have to carry out to the same extent, and that they will have more time to devote to human relations with users.

AI is also our sovereignty. The project led by the President of the Republic since 2017 is to conquer our sovereignty and not depend on foreign technologies. This is particularly true in the digital field and we are working on it together, dear Marina Ferrari. Thanks to this sovereign AI, we will not depend on anyone for this public policy.

P.M ATTAL LISTED FEW EXAMPLES OF HOW AI CONCRETEELY USEDD IN THE PUBLIC SERVICES

But let me give you a few examples of how AI is already changing and will change concretely in our public services:
• Since last year, AI has revolutionized the fight against tax fraud. I was able to measure it as minister responsible for public accounts: by automatically detecting undeclared real estate based on public data, the sovereign AI developed by the tax administration spotted 140,000 cases of fraud and recovered 40 million euros in revenue for local authorities.

• Today, I am announcing that the tax administration will deploy an AI to pre-write responses to the 16 million annual online requests. Each response will remain validated, if necessary modified, by an agent. But the analysis of regulations will be automated, responses drastically accelerated and the work of agents made less painful and more interesting.

• In the same way, I am announcing that 4,000 environmental projects submitted each year to the DREALs will be pre-instructed by an AI. These are projects for the installation of wind farms and urban developments which run into hundreds, sometimes thousands, of pages and the processing of which is currently very long. With this “LIRIAe” project, we will save time and money. And we will further accelerate the ecological transition: this means much shorter deadlines for all of these projects.

• To raise the level of our students, “Aristotle” will offer quizzes and assessments adapted to their level using teaching materials to help them with their revisions and improve the degree success rate. Launched at the end of 2023 by the Centrale Supélec teams, this sovereign solution will be deployed from the start of the school year.
• To make 3,000 hours of lessons accessible to our students with disabilities, an AI will automatically convert the sound of the videos into subtitles. A catalog of lecture courses will be available from the start of the September school year. This AI will then be transposed to other public services from the end of the year to automate, for example, the transcription of legal hearings, complaint filings or medical reports.

• So many other use cases of AI in our public services will emerge over the coming months, from the detection of fires and forest fires using augmented drones to the HR management of public service personnel. This artificial intelligence revolution in our public services is only just beginning. And today we are putting it at the service of the French. And I want to say it again: AI will not replace public officials. It will allow them to concentrate on more interesting, more strategic missions. It will simplify their lives and allow women and men to be increasingly on the front line, in contact with French people in our public services. For AI, the daunting tasks, and for public officials, the link with our fellow citizens.

Ladies and Gentlemen, The second ambition that I would like to set today was at the heart of my general policy declaration: it is that of debureaucratizing France. That of simplifying your daily life. Debureaucratize ministries and administrations. Simplify at all levels, to make life easier for the French. Simplify, to continue to rebuild trust with our fellow citizens. The work started well, around a certain number of concrete initiatives which started from what the French told us. What did the French tell us? They said: “answer when you are called”. I am announcing to you that by the end of the year, 30 essential operators such as France Travail, the CAF, the National Police and the tax administration will reach the objective of 85% of the telephone answering rate next year. They said: “why do we have to fill out the same information 20 times, when we have already provided it elsewhere? ". Here too we have made progress, changed methods and obtained results. I'll take an example: the activity bonus. From next year, there will be no need to look for the amount of resources to declare on your pay slip.

This will be automatically pre-filled for each recipient. This will avoid errors and make life easier for our fellow citizens. This is progress and we will continue. It is also a decisive asset in the fight against non-recourse, to ensure that everyone receives what they are entitled to. I want this fight against non-recourse to be a new pillar of our social model. This is the project of solidarity at the source that we are supporting, as you know, it is a commitment that we made to the French during the last presidential campaign. What did the French still tell us: “you will sanction us immediately, even though it was not clear. When I made an honest mistake.” Again, we responded. This is the meaning of the “right to make mistakes”, successfully deployed since 2018. In tax matters, it has already enabled 230,000 regularizations for an amount of nearly 6 billion euros. In social matters, we extended it last year to micro-entrepreneurs, with a regularization window at URSSAF, which has already made it possible to regularize more than 30 million euros and open up additional retirement rights for our entrepreneurs.

We have profoundly changed our logic: the administration is no longer there only to sanction but to support. No longer to control but to advise.
“WE DO NOT STOP HERE, WE CONTINUE”, P.M ATTAL SAID

But, ladies and gentlemen, we do not stop there. We continue. We accelerate. The French tell us: “many of your forms and sites are not clear. We get lost in acronyms and administrative language.” For me, it's simple: I want the administration to speak to the French, not to itself. So, I am announcing that today I am launching the program: “Speak French to us”. Concretely, an audit will be carried out ministry by ministry to review all online content and forms. We will make clear – I would even say sometimes that we will translate – everything that needs to be made clear. Everything must be intelligible, accessible, and we know that we have a way to go in this area. Finally, the French tell us: “in certain moments, which almost everyone goes through, like the birth of a child or the death of a parent, I don’t understand why it is so complicated. »

This is the meaning of the “moments of life” method implemented last year by the Government, with Stanislas Guerini, to simplify procedures at key stages in the lives of our fellow citizens. Today, I am announcing to you that we have identified two new moments of life for the French that we wish to simplify: “I am becoming a parent” and “I am sending my child to school”. Thus, throughout their children's schooling, parents will benefit from registration files pre-filled with all the civil status information already known to the administration. This will be effective from the start of the 2025 school year. In continuation of these decisions, on March 12, during meetings with senior state executives, we presented with the President of the Republic a new method to go even further in debureaucratization of our country.

Five weeks ago, I set an objective: in each ministry, 10 key simplification measures, expected by the French, must be implemented during the year. I also established a method: starting from the field, bringing out the problems and their resolution, not from Paris but through contact with the teams on the ground: the counter agents, in the prefectures, the rectorates and all those who are every day in contact with the public.

This method is already producing results.

P.M ATTAL UNVEILED THE 1ST MEASURES FOR SIMPLIFYING TO SERVE THE FRENCH PEOPLE

Today, I present to you the first measures that we are immediately deciding to simplify the lives of the French:
• To reduce the duration of legal proceedings by up to 12 months, a tool for selecting and appointing legal experts will be deployed throughout France.
• To fight against non-take-up of social rights, the administration will use tax data from the start of the September school year to directly offer a school scholarship to the 1.5 million families who are entitled to it, without any action on their part. . This is a new step towards solidarity at the source.

• For local authorities, an obligation which caused a lot of talk, particularly in town halls, will be put an end to: the obligation to empty municipal swimming pools every year. This seems very practical, but I can tell you that mayors talk to you about it very often. This obligation was irrelevant to the controls of operators and regional health agencies. It was absurd given our ecological ambitions and the necessary preservation of water resources. It was a cost for communities, which we are now avoiding.
• For communities, still, grant requests can be made electronically, reducing the size of files and the number of supporting documents to simplify the lives of elected officials who serve our fellow citizens in the territories, i.e. more than 40,000 files per year managed by 400 agents.
• For researchers, we will remove the supporting documents requested for their meal expenses on mission. That’s 3 million supporting documents deleted each year. This means less paperwork for everyone.
• For all our fellow citizens, we will extend to local and national elections the online voting proxy implemented for the European elections.

Here are already some examples in a few weeks, because there are many other measures that we talked about this morning and which will be accessible today, the result of the mobilization of everyone, from the field counter to the Parisian ministries. I want to say thank you to all the agents who made this first step possible. But the worst would be to simplify, to debureaucratize for a while because there is the political will, then for everything to go back to the way it was before. The worst thing would be that we get used to it. Let us sink into the comfort of complexity. I refuse to do so. I refuse to do so because our fellow citizens can no longer stand bureaucracy. It stifles initiative. It stifles the desire to act. Our farmers told us so. Our entrepreneurs tell us this. Single mothers tell us this. Students tell us.

The middle classes tell us so. All of French society is asking us: debureaucratize! And, give us back the power to act. This is why today we are opening a new system, “France simplification”, to resolve the most complex administrative situations that will come up from the field. And, before returning to Paris, I instruct each prefect to make maximum use of their new powers of exemption to remove the blockages that can be done through dialogue and boldness.

We saw it at the time of the mobilization of farmers that it was a real possibility in each prefecture to simplify, prefectural decree by prefectural decree, the lives of our farmers. Because,
“France simplification” is a method but it is also a state of mind. A posture of service for our fellow citizens. It is the idea that before turning to the norm, before going back to Paris, each public agent has the duty to seek local solutions to remove the blockages. Finally, I want to be clear: the work to be done to simplify the lives of the French, to simplify our processes and our administrations is colossal. It is a long-term fight, which will require fighting in all sectors. We will not be done after these announcements. These announcements are a major acceleration, but it is certainly not the end of the road. Simplification is our common thread.

“DEBUREAUCRATISATION IS OUR COURSE”, DECLARED P.M ATTAL

Deburaucratization is our course. We will continue, tirelessly, without respite. * Finally, and I end here, my third ambition is to bring public services back to the field. Mending the divides between territories and between the French. I often talk about middle-class French people. Of all those French people who work, who respect the rules, but who sometimes have the feeling of assuming all the duties when others have all the rights. It is for this France of the middle classes and medium-sized towns that I want to bring public services back to the field. For them, we have set up, in particular, the France Services spaces. We have just visited one which is absolutely exemplary, and I once again salute all the teams. It is a simple concept: that, in each canton, there is a space where all the essential procedures for our fellow citizens are grouped: for employment, health, retirement, taxes. Today, our country has 2,700 France services houses covering the national territory.

Today, more than 9 out of 10 French people live less than 20 minutes from a France services house.

And it works ! Each year, France services spaces support our fellow citizens in more than 10 million daily procedures, with a satisfaction rate of 96%. With France Services, we are demonstrating that bringing public services back to the field is possible. That proximity can rhyme with efficiency.

3,000 FRANCE SERVICES HOUSES THOUGHOUT 300 TOWNS & CTIES BY 2026, ANNOUNCED P.M ATTAL

Today I am announcing that we are going to extend the France Services program to 300 medium-sized towns. By 2026, we will therefore have opened up to 3,000 France services houses. We will also extend the range of services offered to our fellow citizens to include the URSSAF procedures for individual employers and microentrepreneurs as well as the AGIRC-ARRCO procedures for supplementary retirement. Through the “Caregivers connect” program, we will allow professional caregivers to complete procedures online “in place of” and with complete legal security. Bringing public services back to the French also means ensuring that we have all the necessary skills internally. Here too, we did not get used to it well. This is why I announced the creation of an internal state strategic consulting agency two years ago, we worked on it with Stanislas Guerini. For each agent recruited into this service – there will be 75 by the end of the year – for each of them, we save €100,000 in external services from consulting firms.

Over the past 2 years, we have already divided the use of consulting firms external to the State by three.
This is nearly 200 million euros saved for the taxpayer. I am announcing it to you: this year, we will continue these savings and we will have divided the State's external consulting expenses by four in 3 years. We will give back the power to act to field agents: starting this summer, 30,000 HR management actions will be decentralized. To recruit a contract worker in Thouars, you will no longer need a stamp in Paris. This is also bringing power closer to the ground and debureaucratizing at all levels. There too, at the service of our field administrations.

We will continue the method of the CNR, the National Council for Refoundation. It was in the commitments of the President of the Republic in 2022. Act with every French woman, every French person who wants to participate in the decision, shape their destiny and express their part of the general will. This is what we are doing to rebuild the School. This is what we are doing to rebuild health. Finally, we report on our progress and, yes, how far we sometimes still have to go. This is my method: saying what works and what doesn’t. Even when we have made decisions over the past 7 years that have not worked, we must have the lucidity and sometimes the courage to recognize it. Telling the truth: this will always be my method and that of my Government. Because we owe this transparency to the French and now each administration reports on the progress of priority policies, territory by territory.

Mr. Minister, Madam Minister, Ladies and Gentlemen, In 2017, we were not elected to manage France. We were elected to transform our country and society. We were not elected to govern in calm times, but precisely to take up challenges that are those of a generation: overcoming mass unemployment, reconciling economy and ecology, mending French fractures. Let’s dare to put AI at the service of the French. Let’s debureaucratize the administration and simplify everyday life. Let us be exemplary in bringing our public services ever closer to the field. This is the road map of my Government. This is our ambition to transform the State and serve the French. Thank you…/
Source: French Premier Ministry, Office Cabinet Matignon.