Abstract
Since the 1860s, in France, arguably to facilitate the public administrative action, the regulatory authorities have established the principle according to which the requests addressed by users of the public administration had to be considered as refused if they had not received any answer within a specified period. This silent decision by the administration, called "implied decision of rejection", could be immediately challenged before the administrative courts. But the public administration has been considered more and more disconnected from the real needs of its users, which has led to a certain deterioration of the relations between them. That led to modify this principle of "silence is worth rejection" to become in 2013 the principle of "silence is worth acceptance". This inversion of the principle established up to then aimed to restore confidence between public administration and its users. But it seems that the result is not as clear as originally expected. This paper aims to contribute to assessing the new rule, which has been implemented for almost five years now.