## Notes from 22 December 2025 [[2025-12-21|← Previous note]] ┃ [[2025-12-23|Next note →]] I finally got around to reading the [[Cercle de la Réforme de l'État]] December 2025 [brief on the state of the senior civil service reform in France](https://cerclereformeetat.eu/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Le-Cercle-de-la-re_forme-de-lEtat-HFPE-19.12.25-17h.pdf). Quick context: France made the big move between 2019 and 2022, creating a unified _corps des administrateurs de l'État_ that merged 14 separate corps into one ~6,000-person body. They replaced the ENA (the traditional _École Nationale d'Administration_) with the _Institut national du service public_ (INSP), created the DIESE to professionalize senior management, and "functionalized" a bunch of senior positions (which, in the French administrative universe, means they aren't necessarily closed off to career civil servants anymore). The whole package was about encouraging mobility, breaking down corporatism, and promoting better talent management. It’s the classic senior civil service reform playbook, just with French characteristics. But here's what got me: the Cercle opens by flatly stating that six years in, this reform "_n'a pas eu d'impact perceptible sur l'hostilité grandissante_" - hasn't had perceptible impact on growing citizen hostility toward the state. And then they diagnose what they call "managerial fatigue" among senior officials - people caught between growing demands, limited real autonomy, increasing complexity, and getting positioned as scapegoats for dysfunction. ### The ritualization critique The part that really landed for me is their concern about ritualization. They acknowledge real advances happened - talent reviews, candidate pools, selection committees, competency frameworks, all the performance management infrastructure. But then they ask: are these instruments becoming ends in themselves? Is this turning into ritual performance rather than genuine qualitative HR management? This is different from the Latin American problem I usually see where reforms exist in law but never get implemented. France _implemented_ this reform. The structures exist. People got reclassified into the new corps. DIESE is running programs. But implementation of structures doesn't guarantee the intended outcomes. There's a risk that you go through all the talent review motions without actually breaking down silos or enabling genuine interministerial mobility. And their call for data transparency is exactly right—they want published numbers on actual mobility patterns. Interministerial moves, cross-sector exchange, movement between the three public services (in France, the civil service is organized into three 'branches': the State, the Territorial, and the Hospital). Without this, everyone's arguing from impressions rather than facts. Good reform design should have had evaluation built in from the start—pilots, impact studies, phased rollout with feedback loops. The fact that we're six years in and still don't have clear metrics on whether the core promise (more mobility, more diverse careers) is being delivered is a problem. ### The broader state reform connection But here's the key insight that connects to my frustration with the German debate: **you cannot reform the senior civil service in isolation from broader state architecture**. The Cercle is explicit about this - reform of the _haute fonction publique_ must go hand-in-hand with reform of the state itself. This challenges the approach I sometimes catch myself wanting to take - treating senior civil service reform as a discrete, manageable policy lever compared to the messier, more politically costly work of comprehensive state reform. The Cercle is saying: if you create new frameworks and unified corps but senior officials still operate within: - Layers of coordination structures - Unclear responsibilities between center and field - Excessive ex-ante controls - Proliferating intermediate organizational layers - Confusion between ministries and agencies ...then the reform won't achieve its goals. You've changed the people's formal status without changing the system they operate within. This is both validating and uncomfortable. Validating because it confirms that narrow technical fixes won't work. Uncomfortable because it means that the push for government modernization can't just focus on elite corps reform - it needs to engage with broader organizational architecture debates. ### Specific proposals worth tracking Some things they call for that seem operationally concrete: - **On territorial autonomy:** They note that after 10+ years of reorganizations, territorial directors have lost autonomy and means. They need stability (not tenure!), recognition, capacity for initiative. Replace ex-ante controls with internal control. I guess need more [[Auftragstaktik]]. - **On contractual appointments:** They acknowledge the opening of senior level positions to outsiders enriches profiles but raises unanswered questions. What about knowledge acquisition? Career paths? Balance with career officials? Implications for those who lose hope of top positions? They want clarity on the overall direction and complementarity between two simultaneous reforms (contractors + INSP creation). - **On simplification as performance metric:** They argue each director should have simplification, reduction of complexity as an explicit objective in their strategic guidance and performance evaluation. - **On data and evaluation:** Multi-year workforce planning linked to broader state reform. Goal of fewer senior officials focused on high-value work, eventually better compensated. Published mobility data in annual reports. This is about building the empirical base for evidence-based reform. ### What's missing / questions The brief doesn't really address the political economy of why the reform hasn't had impact. Is it implementation failure? Design failure? Political and economic instability undermining any reform momentum? They mention "unprecedented political, budgetary and financial context" but don't deeply analyze how that shapes what's possible.