Article published in Challenges, March 5, 2024.
EDITORIAL - Farmers, researchers, entrepreneurs… Regulatory inflation in France affects every sector of activity. But while well-designed regulations can protect consumers and the environment and promote fair competition, it is now time to stop creating new regulations for every current issue.
Not a month goes by without its share of complaints about regulatory inflation. Buried in administrative red tape, farmers complain that they can no longer practice their profession. Caught up in filling out Excel spreadsheets (which are later discarded) and chasing after multiple microgrants for their team or laboratory, researchers lament that they no longer have time to devote to their work. They also decry the meeting culture associated with the proliferation of time-consuming committees at the research unit, institution, academic district, or national levels; they criticize the constraints that hinder synergies between academic research and industry.
Petitions are circulating at the CNRS under the slogan “CNRS… we’ve had enough!”, and a research director has just returned his silver medal by certified mail, citing “widespread mistreatment.”
Everyone is struggling with the sheer volume of regulations: local governments and construction professionals, individuals, and businesses (how can the owner of a small business possibly understand—or even be familiar with—every single one of the 3,500 pages of the Labor Code, not to mention the other regulations and support mechanisms applicable to businesses)? The problem, however, isn’t just the sheer volume of regulations. Some of them are incompatible with one another...
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