At the closing of the Departments' Assizes in Albi on November 14, 2025, Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu outlined a 'decentralization act' and announced a bill to create a unique social allocation in December. This reform aims to merge several social benefits to achieve management savings. He also pledged to double the departments' safeguard fund to 600 million euros.
The Assizes of the Departments of France, held in Albi from November 12 to 14, 2025, brought together department presidents facing growing financial challenges, including falling real estate revenues and exploding social spending. In closing on Friday, November 14, Sébastien Lecornu, a former local official in Vernon and Eure since 2015, adopted an empathetic tone, recalling his experience as the youngest elected at 28.
The prime minister promised to 'give the starting signal' for a 'decentralization act' expected before the March 2026 municipal elections. Among the announced measures, a bill will be tabled in December for a 'unique social allocation,' merging the activity bonus, the active solidarity income (RSA), and certain housing aids. 'This structural reform will allow savings, not on beneficiaries, but management savings,' he stated, highlighting its ability to 'reconcile many different political sensitivities.'
This promise, made by Emmanuel Macron since 2017 and relaunched by his predecessors, aims to simplify benefits to reduce non-take-up, though associations defending the vulnerable warn against 'harmonization downward.' Laurent Wauquiez (LR) welcomed this 'important advance' that would create a 'real gap between welfare and work,' advocating a cap at 70% of the SMIC.
Lecornu also announced an amendment to raise the departments' safeguard fund from 300 to 600 million euros in the 2026 budget, and mandated reopening the Dilico file, criticized for reserving fiscal revenues. He called for reforming regional health agencies (ARS), affirming the sovereign role of health under prefects' responsibility, and entrusting proximity care planning to departments, which have developed multidisciplinary health houses.
François Sauvadet, president of the Association of Departments of France (UDI), praised the 600 million euros as 'what we asked for,' urging to 'stop loading the barge of departments' to allow them to 'keep their head above water.'