The French, The Economist observes, have an unusually large number of pointless committees. 697 to be exact.
France has commissions for noise, for the air, for water, for cold, for the polar regions, for rubbish and more. There are at least 13 commissions for inventing new French words or phrases. Charged with translating “breaking news” last year, one came up with the snappy "information de dernière minute."
Luc Ferry's salary-for-nothing commission is by far not the worst.
His council has a smallish budget, most of its members are unpaid and it produces reports. It is not to be confused with the nine-member Council for Employment, Income and Social Cohesion, nor the 51-member Employment Policy Council, and certainly not the 36-strong Council for Economic Analysis, which in turn has nothing to do with the 36-strong High Council for the Social Economy.
This said, it still might make more sense to pay the monthly salary to someone who actually does the work.
As Le Figaro points out, fake inspectors in France's Education Nationale "don't come to fill a post. Their activity, when they perform it, corresponds to no defined need and their recruitement is not subject to any selection or competition."
"Ils ne viennent pas combler un poste vacant, leur activité - quand ils l'exercent - ne correspond à aucun besoin défini et leur recrutement ne fait l'objet d'aucun concours ni critère de sélection… Dans le jargon de l'Éducation nationale, on les appelle les «IAP», les inspecteurs de l'académie de Paris. Vendredi, leur condition a été passée au crible devant les hauts magistrats de la Cour des comptes. Fait exceptionnel, cinq hauts fonctionnaires, parmi lesquels deux anciens directeurs de cabinet du ministère de l'Éducation nationale et un recteur, comparaissaient vendredi en toute discrétion devant la cour de discipline budgétaire et financière de la Cour des comptes, juridiction administrative chargée de punir les infractions en matière de finances publiques. En cause : la douzaine de nominations intervenues au sein de cette inspection si particulière, entre 2006 et 2008. Le procureur général estime en effet qu'existaient «de sérieuses raisons de mettre en doute la régularité» de ces nominations."
via www.lefigaro.fr
