The stealth legitimization of a controversial policy tool: Statistical profiling in French Public Employment Service

Statistical profiling algorithms claiming to predict which jobseekers are at risk of becoming long-term unemployed spread unevenly across countries. However, the pathways and histories these tools understudied. Because path in France is a winding one, it fruitful study production acceptability within Public Employment Service (PES), upstream its reception by frontline advisers. Using mix interviews written sources, we show that sits crossroads two processes: technical political transformations instrument itself broader institutional managerial PES. On basis this case study, paper enriches our understanding slow incremental rationalization public services have termed “professional rationalization.” We argue that, far from being softened or moderated form bureaucratic rationalization, powerful—perhaps even irreversible—precisely because transforms target (frontline advisers) before deployed.