Country Profile: France

• Author: Naldini, Andrea; Pompili, Marco; Peruccacci, Eleonora
• Pages: 163-177

163

12.COUNTRY PROFI LE: FRAN CE

Introduction:brief history of evaluation obligation s in France

At the instigation of Prime Minister Michel Rocard, a policy for the developmentof

evaluation was launched in 1990. Decree No. 90-82 of January 22, 1990 created "an

inter-ministerial evaluation committee responsible for developing and coordinating

government initiatives in the evaluation of public policies", "a Scientific Evaluation

Coun cil respon sible for pr omo ting th e developm ent of eval uation method s and d efining

a code of ethics in the matter", where no elected representative sits and, finally, "a

Nat ional Evalu ation Development Fund” .

The Inter-ministerial Circular of December 9, 1993 introduced an obligation for the

French Regions to evaluate State-Region plan contracts for the period 1994-1998 in

par t in response t o Eur opean req uests ( EEC Council r egulat ions of July 20, 1993) .

In 1998, a new evaluation reformwas instituted in France by decree 98-1048 of

Nov em ber 18t h. I t s ligh tly m odi fies th e ob ject ive b y i ntr odu cing a not ion of eff icien cy150.

It replaces t he Scientific Evaluation Cou ncil wit h a Nationa l Evaluation Com mit teethat,

in part nership wit h t he General Plan ning Commission, ev aluates " policies condu cted by

the State, local authorities and their respect ive public establishment s". The evaluat ion

programremains in the hands of the Ministers. For each assessment, the Planning

Com mission defines a team , made up of expert s, rep resen tat ives of the adm inistr ation

and elected officials, which must complywith some specifications. More than fifteen

program s w ere evaluated between 1999 an d 2002.

The Com mi ssari at au Plan in all re gul ato ry te xt s bec ame , i n 2 017 , the Gene ral St rat egic

Planning and Prospective Commission (Commissariat général à la Stratégie et à la

Prospective, un der th e publ ic n ame of ‘Fran ce S tra tég ie’) w hich is att ach ed t o t he Prim e

Minister and conducts, or pilots, evaluations of national interest at the request of the

Prim e Minist er or t he Min istr ies.

At t he sam e t im e, th e d ecr ee n ° 20 05 -1 79 2 of Dece mb er 30 , 200 5 est abl ishe d a Gen era l

Direct orat e for the Modernisation of the St ate at t he Ministr y of the Economy, Finance

an d I ndu str y. Th is Di rect ora te Gener al is r espo nsib le f or eval uat ing th e ad min ist rat ion 's

"modernisation strategies". Itbecame by decree n° 2012-1198 of October 30 2012,

wi thi n a Gener al Secr etaria t f or the mo der nisat ion of pu blic action , t he Inter-m inisterial

Direction for the modernisation of public action (DIMAP). It "is responsible for the

coordination of audit and evaluation work on public policies", which it carries out "b y

associating the administrations and inspection and control bodies of the ministries

concerned". Th e go ver nm ent de cides on wh ich pub lic p olic ies t o assess . A mis sion let te r

and speci ficat ions are drawn up by t he d epar tm ents of th e Min istr y concern ed, the n an

evaluation committee, generally chaired by the Minister, is formed. Finally, an

ev alua tio n t eam ex te rna l t o t he Dir ecto rat e c arr ies o ut th e w ork , pro duce s t he r epo rt (s)

and proposes alternative scenarios for the policy evaluated.The evaluation obligation

is reinf orced b y t he o rgan ic law of April 15, 2009 wh ich specifies th at “t he gov ernment

has t he obligat ion to tr ansm it to t he Council of St ate then to the Parliam ent in support

of each bill an impact study in order to constitute an assessment andpublic decision

support tool” . From 2017, th e new gov ernment has m aint ained t he mandate of DI MAP

150Itstates that "the evaluation of a public policy aims to assess the effectiveness of this policy by

com pari ng i ts r esult s wit h t he a ssigned obj ecti ves a nd t he m eans imp leme nted ".