Shortly after taking office in 2007, France’s President Nicolas Sarkozy and Prime Minister François Fillon launched a reform program—the Révision générale des politiques publiques (RGPP)—to achieve structural reductions in the country’s public expenditures and, in Fillon’s words, to “do better with less.” The ambitious program has other goals as well: to modernize government, improve services for citizens and companies, ensure greater recognition for the work of civil servants, and promote a “culture of results.”

The RGPP has launched more than 450 initiatives in all 18 government ministries. Among these initiatives are structural reforms (including mergers of France’s tax and collections agencies), changes in governance models (such as the implementation of a performance-based funding system for universities), service improvements (for example, acceleration of the naturalization process), and improvements in support functions such as IT and human resources.

It has not been an easy road, but the government remains committed to the RGPP. The task of coordinating and supporting all RGPP initiatives falls to an interministerial body, the Direction générale de la modernisation de l’État (DGME), led by former consultant François-Daniel Migeon.