Why Are French Councils Spending Thousands Training Psychics to Ask Nearby Animals and Plants Their Opinions About Local Planning Issues?

If Elon Musk thought he had his work cut out slashing government waste over in America with his new Department Of Government Efficiency (DOGE), he should think himself lucky he hasn’t taken on a similar role over in France. Here, unnecessary bureaucratic largesse is so great that local authorities have recently been ordered to eliminate some €2.2 billion in public spending – despite which, several hard-Left ones have continued to splurge taxpayer cash on the distinctly unnecessary cause of paying for training courses to facilitate psychic communication between plants, animals and certain lucky local humanoids securely employed on council payrolls. 

Lyon council, which is dominated by the Green Ecologists Party, paid out €3,000 last year for 20 of its staff to attend a workshop upon “dialogue with living things” held by an outlet called LICHEN – Laboratoire des Interdépendances Concernant les Humaines Et Non-humaines (Laboratory Concerning the Interdependence Between Humans and Non-Humans). Despite Paris-mandated spending cuts, several other French councils are soon due to follow suit. 

Recent accounts in the media present this as little more than a series of embarrassing role-play sessions, in which pen-pushers are exhorted to imagine themselves in the position of various French animals and plants, thereby to raise environmental empathy for snails and frogs amongst those who may otherwise be minded only to eat them. Course leaders are quoted as leading students in exercises like the following: “Representatives of the bats, I invite you to become bats: open your