Gabriel Attal, the former French prime minister now running for the presidency in 2027, has promised what he called the biggest institutional reform since the founding of the Fifth Republic in 1958, if he wins the Elysee.
In an interview published in the Journal du dimanche on 1 August, Attal set out a broad programme of constitutional changes designed to decentralise state power, speed up public administration, and reduce the size of parliament.
Power to the mayors
Attal said he intended to present a new territorial organisation in the autumn aimed at reducing Paris’s dominance over French public life and making mayors the most powerful elected officials in the country. He described this as a way to bring power closer to local communities.
On administrative reform, he wants to enshrine in the constitution a principle of speed, including a maximum two-month deadline for public bodies to respond to any project submission. He said that if no response came within that period, silence would count as approval.
He also proposed capping the total period for administrative appeals related to any given project at eighteen months, arguing that some projects had been blocked for years by successive legal challenges.
A smaller parliament
Attal said he would reduce the number of deputies from 577 to 350 and the number of senators from 348 to 200, citing both greater efficiency and savings of several hundred million euros a year.
He also called for an annual referendum, held on a dedicated day each year, in which voters would answer multiple-choice questions on topics previously discussed with political parties and social partners.
Beyond institutions, Attal repeated his support for restrictive immigration quotas, promised a deep reform of the justice system, and proposed a voluntary departure scheme for 100,000 civil servants with an accompanying severance payment. On pensions, he maintained his position of abolishing the legal retirement age in favour of a universal system that would include a funded component.
The Philippe question
Attal is competing for the same political space as fellow candidate Edouard Philippe. He proposed that if the two men were level in polls at the start of 2027, they should hold a deciding vote between them to avoid a damaging split within the same political family. Philippe’s party Horizons has not endorsed the idea.
