Federal, Agile and Local Justice
French justice is on the verge of structural breakdown. Caught between total administrative centralization managed from Paris and a chronic lack of resources on the ground, it advances at a pace disconnected from citizens' real time.
The problem is architectural
Faced with recent tragedies and the manifest ineffectiveness of judicial monitoring, indignation is legitimate. However, the solution does not lie in new circumstantial laws passed in urgency and emotion. The problem is architectural: the Jacobin model imposes a uniform grid on deeply heterogeneous territorial ecosystems, prohibiting any form of reactivity, local adaptation or pragmatic questioning.
The figures are overwhelming: France devotes only 0.26% of its GDP to its judicial system (CEPEJ 2024 report), well below the European median. Prisons display a record occupancy rate of 127,9% (Council of Europe, 2024) — a situation described as "deep concern" by the Committee of Ministers.
Project R3 proposes to refound the judicial institution on the principles of a Sixth Republic: decouple the law from its logistical management, and integrate the most advanced technological tools to finally make the law readable.
1. Decoupling Standards and Management: Federal Balance
Our project is based on a strict principle of subsidiarity, which safeguards the unity of the Republic while decentralizing logistical intelligence:
The drafting of the major codes (Criminal, Civil) and the protective status of magistrates remain under exclusive federal jurisdiction. Each citizen is judged according to the same criteria throughout the territory.
Administrative, budgetary and logistical management of the courts (buildings, registry offices, digital equipment) transferred to the Regions. Their financial autonomy via the "Regional Treasury" makes it possible to immediately allocate resources to break unbearable delays.
2. Agility Federalism
Rather than a single, top-down solution, federalism transforms France into a permanent laboratory for public innovations. Short feedback loops to learn and adapt.
In the unitary system, a failed reform paralyzes the entire nation. Under the federal system, a Region can test a pilot protocol — for example, an ultra-early supervision system for repeat juvenile offenders. If the test fails, the impact is limited. If it succeeds, it becomes a transposable model.
The Regions stop being subject to bureaucratic circulars and instead inspire each other with best practices validated in the field. If a method is proven in one region, it is taken up and adapted by others in record time. Decision-making agility replaces legislative cumbersomeness.
3. Technological Sovereignty: "Legal Code Refactoring"
The ineffectiveness of justice also comes from the illegibility of the law. The French legislative maze suffers from the same ills as aging software accumulating immense technical debt: redundancies, contradictions, textual overloads. Project R3 proposes to arm the Ministry of Justice with AI tools to carry out a global semantic overhaul.
From New Zealand (Better Rules: translate the law into computer code) to the United States (Stanford CodeX: automated audit of federal regulations), modern states are using AI to track down logical flaws in their laws.
France already has building blocks of excellence: OpenFisca (modeling of the socio-fiscal system in algorithms) and the Albert Project (Sovereign AI of DINUM).
The R3 Vision: Taming Complexity with AI
- Vector semantic deduplication — Analysis of the Légifrance vector space to identify laws that say the same thing with different words, proposing targeted repeals to legal experts.
- Multi-Agent Simplification ("Iso-Semantic") — Specialized AI workflows rewrite complex texts concisely, under the absolute control (Human-in-the-Loop) of legislators.
- Dependency Modeling (GraphRAG) — Before any text is deleted, a knowledge graph instantly checks thousands of cross-references to avoid breaking the legal order.
4. Justice Connected to Reality
The effectiveness of a sanction lies not only in its severity, but in the certainty of its execution and the quality of the follow-up that accompanies it.
Penitentiary Regionalization to Break Recidivism
Centralized management of prisons has failed, creating overcrowded and criminogenic detention centers. Project R3 transfers prison management to the Regions. These are also responsible for vocational training, employment and social action, enabling them to design coherent reintegration pathways. Medical, educational and economic integration — coordinated within the same political entity — with strict oversight and no gaps.
Citizen Local Justice
To ease congestion in the courts and restore civic ties, Local Justice bodies are created at the municipal level. Made up of trained and sworn citizen-magistrates, they rule immediately on small disputes and everyday incivilities. No minor criminal act goes without a swift public response — rooting out the sense of impunity at the source.