Subnational Government: The French Experience (French Politics, Society and Culture)

Subnational Government The French Experience

John Loughlin

French Politics, Society and Culture Series General Editor: Robert Elgie, Paddy Moriarty Professor of Government and International Studies, Dublin City University France has always fascinated outside observers. Now, the country is undergoing a period of profound transformation. France is faced with a rapidly changing international and European environment and it is having to rethink some of its most basic social, political and economic orthodoxies. As elsewhere, there is pressure to conform. And yet, while France is responding in ways that are no doubt familiar to people in other European countries, it is also managing to maintain elements of its long-standing distinctiveness. Overall, it remains a place that is not exactly comme les autres. This new series examines all aspects of French politics, society and culture. In so doing it focuses on the changing nature of the French system as well as the established patterns of political, social and cultural life. Contributors to the series are encouraged to present new and innovative arguments so that the informed reader can learn and understand more about one of the most beguiling and compelling of all European countries. Titles include: Jean K. Chalaby THE DE GAULLE PRESIDENCY AND THE MEDIA Statism and Public Communications Pepper D. Culpepper, Peter A. Hall and Bruno Palier (editors) CHANGING FRANCE The Politics that Markets Make David Drake FRENCH INTELLECTUALS AND POLITICS FROM THE DREYFUS AFFAIR TO THE OCCUPATION David Drake INTELLECTUALS AND POLITICS IN POST-WAR FRANCE Graeme Hayes ENVIRONMENTAL PROTEST AND THE STATE IN FRANCE David J. Howarth THE FRENCH ROAD TO EUROPEAN MONETARY UNION Andrew Knapp PARTIES AND THE PARTY SYSTEM IN FRANCE A Disconnected Democracy? Michael S. Lewis-Beck (editor) THE FRENCH VOTER Before and After the 2002 Elections John Loughlin SUBNATIONAL GOVERNMENT The French Experience Mairi Maclean, Charles Harvey and Jon Press BUSINESS ELITES AND CORPORATE GOVERNANCE IN FRANCE AND UK

Susan Milner and Nick Parsons (editors) REINVENTING FRANCE State and Society in the Twenty-First Century Gino G. Raymond THE FRENCH COMMUNIST PARTY DURING THE FIFTH REPUBLIC A Crisis of Leadership and Ideology Sarah Waters SOCIAL MOVEMENTS IN FRANCE Towards a New Citizenship Reuben Y. Wong THE EUROPEANIZATION OF FRENCH FOREIGN POLICY France and the EU in East Asia

French Politics, Society and Culture Series Standing Order ISBN 0–333–80440–6 hardcover Series Standing Order ISBN 0–333–80441–4 paperback (outside North America only) You can receive future titles in this series as they are published by placing a standing order. Please contact your bookseller or, in case of difficulty, write to us at the address below with your name and address, the title of the series and the ISBN quoted above. Customer Services Department, Macmillan Distribution Ltd, Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS, England

Subnational Government The French Experience John Loughlin European Studies Centre Visiting Fellow, St Antony’s College, Oxford Professor of European Politics, Cardiff University, UK

© John Loughlin 2007 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copying or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London W1T 4LP. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The author has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published 2007 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS and 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N. Y. 10010 Companies and representatives throughout the world PALGRAVE MACMILLAN is the global academic imprint of the Palgrave Macmillan division of St. Martin’s Press, LLC and of Palgrave Macmillan Ltd. Macmillan® is a registered trademark in the United States, United Kingdom and other countries. Palgrave is a registered trademark in the European Union and other countries. ISBN-13: 978–0–333–99447–4 hardback ISBN-10: 0–333–99447–7 hardback This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Loughlin, John. Subnational government : the French experience / John Loughlin. p. cm. – (French politics, society, and culture) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN-13: 978–0–333–99447–4 (cloth) ISBN-10: 0–333–99447–7 (cloth) 1. Subnational governments–France. 2. Decentralization in government–France. I. Title. JS4895.L68 2007 320.944–dc22

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Printed and bound in Great Britain by Antony Rowe Ltd, Chippenham and Eastbourne

To my daughter, Niamh Baker-Loughlin, to whom I have tried to pass on my love of all things French.

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Contents List of Tables

viii

List of Maps

x

Introduction: The International Context of French Subnational Governance

1

Part I

General Overview of the French Case

Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3

25

The ‘Trente Glorieuses’ (1945–1975) and their Aftermath

45

The Decentralization Programme: An Overview (1982–2006)

63

Part II The Institutions of French Subnational Governance Chapter 4 Chapter 5

Part III

23

Centralization and Decentralization in French History

The Municipality (Commune): Between Local Democracy and Effective Governance The ‘Meso’ Level: The Region vs. the Département

The Institutions at Work

81 83 110

137

Chapter 6

The Politics of French Territorial Governance

139

Chapter 7

Administering Territorial Governance: The State Strikes Back?

162

Paying For It All

182

Chapter 8

Conclusions

203

Notes

208

Index

234

vii

List of Tables 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 4.6 4.7 4.8 4.9 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 6.1

6.2

6.3 7.1 7.2 8.1 8.2

Urban, rural and agricultural populations Relative weighting of the three sectors as a percentage of the working population in 1975 and 1982 Population movements across territories: average yearly entries and departures for given periods Immigration in France 1946–1987 (tables in thousands) Immigration of workers and family members by nationality Population sizes of urban units in 1999 The population in different urban and rural categories The municipality’s areas of responsibility Progress of EPCIs with their own fiscal resources in France from 1999 to 2005 Number of EPCIs with own resources by region (2005) Demographic repartition of the EPCIs in 2004 The division of EPCIs according to their legal status Percentage of population of a region living in an existing pays or one in preparation Inter-regional pays (2005) The responsibilities of the département The responsibilities of the region Evolution of the amount of contracted funding for CPERs (billions of euros) (excluding the DOM) Evolution of the share of the state and the region in funding of CPERs (excluding the DOM) Balance of forces between Right and Left at national and local (municipalities of more than 9000 inhabitants) levels (% of votes cast) Evolution of municipal elections in towns of 9000 inhabitants or more in 1977, 1983 and 1989 (% of votes cast) Results of regional elections 2004 The evolution of the relative position in percentage terms of the three administrative systems in France (1969–1998) The evolution of the numbers of territorial administrators according to the type of employer (1984–1998) Local Expenditure/GDP (% in year 2000) Breakdown of local expenditure and revenues by level of government in 2003 (in billions of euros) viii

54 54 55 56 57 85 88 90 97 98 98 99 103 105 115 127 131 131

154

155 159 178 179 184 185

List of Tables ix

8.3 8.4 8.5 8.6 8.7 8.8 8.9 8.10

Trends in local government finances in billions of euros (1998–2003) Division of local finances among the different levels of government in millions of euros (1994–2003) Local expenditure in 1999, in billions of euros Local expenditure by type (in %) in 1999 The proportional contributions in % of the ‘quatre vieilles’, 1994–2005 Breakdown of local direct and indirect taxes in billions of euros (2003 and 2004) The debts of local authorities in billions of euros (1999–2005) Structural funds in France, 2000–2006 (in millions of euros)

185 186 186 187 189 191 199 200

List of Maps Map 1 Map 2 Map 3

France: Administrative Divisions The capitals of the French regions The regions of France

x

24 82 109

Introduction: The International Context of French Subnational Governance

France has often prided itself on being an ‘exception’ in Europe, whether this was in relation to its political history, its type of political system or its system of local government – or even with regard to its intellectual and literary brilliance. Undoubtedly, all national states like to think of themselves in these terms as a way of justifying their national identity which is first of all defined in negative terms – as an Irish, Scots or Welsh person. I am first of all not English; as an English person, I am not French or German; and so on. These self-descriptions probably hide more than they reveal and, in many ways, Europeans share a great deal in common with their fellow Europeans even if there remain also important differences among us.1 But one area where the notion of ‘l’exception française’ does seem to make sense is in its system of local politics and government. France is unique among western states in holding on to its more than 36 000 municipalities. No other state comes close to this. But, in other respects, France is like other states and has undergone many of the same influences which have so much modified systems of governance over the past twenty years or so. In fact, one important change is that France is no longer the self-contained political system that it was in the past, precisely as a result of the wider changes such as globalization and the increasing integration of the European Union which have made the country more amenable to outside influences. At the same time, the French nation-state has not disappeared, although what it means to be a nation-state at the beginning of the 21st century is different from what it meant half-way through the 20th century. Part of the change which has occurred in this re-definition is the way in which the relations between the central state and the subnational levels of government are conceived and organized. Thus a study of subnational government must, in this sense, be a study of the state itself. This book is an attempt to examine in some detail the changes that have occurred in this regard in the French case but what is described and analysed here has a much wider import when placed in the broader context of trends in 1

2 Subnational Government

territorial politics in all our developed states, both in Europe and further afield in the US, Canada and the antipodean states of Australia and New Zealand. The purpose of this introductory chapter, therefore, is to describe this wider context so as to avoid the idea that what is happening in France is unique or of no wider import. But we would like to stress also that there is a specifically French approach to the wider challenges. This is of interest to the large number of states which adopted the French model of the nation-state when they became independent, what is sometimes called the ‘Napoleonic’ state. These range from Finland in the north, through the Netherlands and Belgium, to the countries of southern Europe, Spain, Portugal, Italy and Greece. The French model of the nation-state was also influential in several of the countries of East and Central Europe – Poland, Romania, Moldova, Albania, etc. The west European countries have already, over the past number of years, significantly modified their ‘Napoleonic’ states. Spain, for example, is almost a federal state, which is far removed from anything that Napoleon or the traditional French Jacobins would have approved of. The same could be said of the Netherlands (which, despite its Napoleonic ‘form’ is more characteristic of the German state tradition) and Belgium, which is a fascinating example of the passage from a classical French unitary state to a highly decentralized federation in which the federal state has a barely residual existence. But the countries of East and Central Europe are still struggling to adapt their systems to contemporary political realities, especially in the field of regional and local democracy.2 Just as these countries were inspired by France to adopt the ‘Napoleonic’ state form, so the French experience of decentralization and regionalization might help them to carry out similar reforms in their own countries. But, before launching into our analysis of the French experience of subnational government, it will be useful to describe the broader international context in which reforms in this area have taken place.

The nation-state and its culmination in the Welfare State Our starting point is the changes that have taken place in the Welfare State over the past 30 years or so, but this too must be placed in a historical context which sees it as the culmination of a process of nation-state building that had begun around the time of the French Revolution (1789). Before the Revolution, both ‘states’ and ‘nations’ had existed, but it was at the Revolution3 that ‘nation’ and ‘state’ were combined to form a ‘couple’ which was first normatively proclaimed, then empirically implemented. The ideology of the nation-state was formulated under the influence of Rousseau’s notion that sovereignty emanated from ‘the people’. Previously, the notion of the ‘divine right of kings’ understood sovereignty to derive from God and exercised on his behalf by the monarch, who, therefore, in

Introduction: The International Context of French Subnational Governance 3

some sense represented God.4 The idea which underlay the Revolution, however, was that the origin of sovereignty lay with the ‘people’ who, in turn, became identified with the ‘nation’. The question then became: who are the ‘people’ who constitute the ‘nation’? There were both exclusive and inclusive definitions of membership of the nation: some thought it should include only those capable of participating in the affairs of the res publica, mostly educated male property owners; others thought it should include all adults, male or female. This was an important question because the new understanding of sovereignty and nation-hood underlay the development of democracy and determined who could participate in the democratic process. The more inclusive definition would impose itself only slowly over a period of about 150 years and after many struggles by those groups excluded.5 The nation-state and nationalism The idea of popular sovereignty, and the identification of ‘nation’ and ‘people’, led to a radically new way of defining the relations between nation and state. Normatively, it was postulated that ‘nations’ ought to have ‘states’ and that ‘states’ ought to be co-terminous with ‘nations’. In this way, the two concepts were united in the concept of the ‘nation-state’ and, in turn, this gave rise to the political ideology and movements of modern nationalism.6 Throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, nationalism shaped and reshaped the political organization of the modern world and hastened the break-up of the Turkish, Austro-Hungarian and British empires and aggregated what had been disparate territorial units in Germany and Italy. The former Spanish colonies as well as Brazil in South America adopted the nation-state model when they gained independence in the 19th century, as did the new countries in post-colonial Africa and Asia after the Second World War. Its continuing force was evident following the collapse of the Soviet Empire and the disintegration of federations such as the former Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia. The nation-state today seems to be such a ‘natural’ form of political organization that it is difficult to realize that it is historically very recent. It is also important to remember that there were, in fact, other competing forms of political organization such as multi-national monarchies (AustroHungary), city states (Venice, Florence, Genoa), city leagues (the Hanseatic League), ecclesiastical entities (bishoprics, abbeys) as well as territorial monarchies (France, England, Scotland, Sweden).7 The nation-state succeeded in supplanting these various territorial forms basically because it seemed to be the best suited to emerging industrial capitalism and the rise of the industrial bourgeoisie.8 Industrial capitalism flourished best in market conditions and through the reduction of barriers to internal trade. Karl Polanyi has described the sweeping away of traditional forms of trade and restrictions by the market as ‘the great transformation’ which took

4 Subnational Government

place over a period of about 150 years.9 The nation-state provided the political institutions which both allowed the bourgeoisie to wrest power from the landed aristocracy, the Church and the traditional elites of precapitalist society and to allow capitalism to flourish. But, as Marx and Engels recognized with anticipation, the forces unleashed by the industrial revolution also threatened to destroy the system itself. To some extent the catastrophes of the First and Second World Wars were expressions of the baleful effects of an anarchic nation-state system and provided reasons for further ‘taming’ this system while not completely abandoning it. This led to what Peter Wagner has termed the passage from ‘disorganized’ to ‘organized’ capitalism in the first half of the 20th century.10 The ‘Welfare State’ was one method of organizing industrial capitalism and its foundations were laid in the 1930s following the catastrophic events surrounding the Great Depression. John Maynard Keynes (1883–1946) provided the intellectual basis for the economic policies that would underlie the Welfare State, advocating the intervention of the state both to compensate for market failure and to bring about positive economic outcomes such as full employment. The Swedish Social Democrats came to power in the 1930s and set up what was probably the world’s first comprehensive Welfare State, and Roosevelt’s New Deal was an application of the same ideas in an American context. But the Second World War disrupted these efforts, and it was only after the war that they were taken up again.11 In the 1950s and 1960s, among the major political formations of the left, right and centre, there was what Colin Crouch has called the ‘midcentury consensus’,12 which was an essential condition for completing what had begun before the war. In the UK, a senior civil servant, William Beveridge (1879–1963), while the war was still in progress, drew up a report for the government that laid the foundations for the UK model of the Welfare State. There was a complementarity between the economic policies of Keynes and the social policies of Beveridge and sometimes the two names are put together to refer to the Keynesian-Beveridgian state. The Welfare State and democracy To some extent, the post-war Welfare States were the culmination of the process of nation-state building whose beginnings with the French Revolution were outlined above. In 1950, T. H. Marshall argued that they allowed the completion of political citizenship, which had won the rights associated with liberal democracy, by social citizenship, implying a set of rights to social welfare.13 But, at the same time, another movement seriously questioned the viability of the nation-state system and, indeed, also sought to ‘tame’ its more aggressive features which were held to be responsible for the two major European wars. This approach was taken by the European federalist movement and, in particular, by Christian democrats such as Robert Schuman, Konrad Adenauer and Altiero De Gasperi with the

Introduction: The International Context of French Subnational Governance 5

assistance of Jean Monnet. Although these ‘founding fathers’ of Europe, did not wish to abolish the nation-state, they did seek to minimize its central importance by building a supranational European system and thus lay the foundations of a future European federation.14 This was done by combining the coal and steel industries (which provided the raw material for war) in the European Coal and Steel Communities. But, as Alan Milward has shown, European integration, far from undermining the nation-state, in practice ‘rescued’ it.15 It is no coincidence that, during the Golden Age (les Trente Glorieuses) of the Welfare State (1945–1975), the European Community (EC) was largely a ‘residual’ policy actor which developed only a few truly European policies such as the Common Agricultural Policy. As Gosta Esping-Anderson and Francis Castles have shown, there were several kinds of Welfare State.16 Nevertheless, all these possessed a number of common features which were important in terms of their territorial organization and the role assigned to regions and other local authorities. First, they were states built up during the period of the post-war economic boom and, like the economy and society, were in continual expansion: this applied to their bureaucracies, their policy aims and objectives, their policy programmes, the numbers of civil servants, and, not least, their budgets. Second, the notion of equity, both between persons and between territories, was one of their underlying principles to be achieved mainly through progressive taxation and pro-active regional policies. Third, inspired by the Keynesian model of macro-economic policy, it was broadly accepted that the state not only might but should intervene in both the economy and society in order to bring about these aims and objectives. Fourth, the ‘mid-century consensus’ on the part of the main political tendencies of both right and left were also broadly accepted by the wider populations who were just recovering from the trials of war. The mood at the time is captured by Susan George in a talk17 she gave on a brief history of neo-liberalism: In 1945 or 1950, if you had seriously proposed any of the ideas and policies in today’s standard neo-liberal toolkit, you would have been laughed off the stage at or sent off to the insane asylum. At least in the Western countries, at that time, everyone was a Keynesian, a social democrat or a social-Christian democrat or some shade of Marxist. The idea that the market should be allowed to make major social and political decisions; the idea that the State should voluntarily reduce its role in the economy, or that corporations should be given total freedom, that trade unions should be curbed and citizens given much less rather than more social protection – such ideas were utterly foreign to the spirit of the time. Even if someone actually agreed with these ideas, he or she would have hesitated to take such a position in public and would have had a hard time finding an audience.

6 Subnational Government

Despite this consensus there were those, both on the right and left of the political spectrum, and implicitly referred to in the last sentence of this quote, who rejected the Welfare State, albeit for differing reasons.18 What is sometimes called the ‘New Left’, for example the Frankfurt School including Adorno, Horkheimer and Marcuse, combined some elements of Marx’s thought (particularly the humanistic ‘Young Marx’ of the 1844 Mansucripts) with Weberian sociology and Freudian psychoanalysis. This ‘critical’ Marxism criticized the Welfare State for stifling the revolutionary potential of the working class as well as the free creativity of the individual by its excessive bureaucracy. At least some of the New Left advocated greater individual expression particularly in sexual matters.19 Other movements such as Sartrean existentialism and the radical psychology of R. D. Laing reinforced the idea that the period after the Second World War was one of repression and boredom. This kind of critique burst into the open with the student revolts of the 1960s and, in particular, in the May ’68 events in France.20 But, these ‘events’ had little impact on public policy at least until the current period.21 A more telling and politically important critique, however, came from the ‘New Right’ who, in Susan George’s formulation, would have been laughed off the stage in the 1950s and 1960s.22 This was a group of scholars, mostly based in the United States, and working in the disciplines of economics (Friedman and von Hayek), philosophy (Nozick), political science (Niskanen), who challenged the very foundations of both Keynesian economic policy and Beveridgian-type social policy, that is, the foundations of the Welfare State itself. Although they did not form a completely coherent school, these thinkers were united in their rejection of the state, or at least the increasingly interventionist state of the first half of the 20th century, and advocated instead a reliance on the freedom of individuals making choices in markets or in market-like situations. As Claus Offe has argued,23 the critics of the right and left shared a number of positions in common such as their advocacy of individual freedom and their critique of the excessively bureaucratic state. Indeed, some of their successors today on both the right and the left hold ‘libertarian’ positions on issues such as divorce or homosexuality. But, at root, they had fundamentally different understandings of politics and democracy. The New Left were highly aware of the ‘public sphere’ and the all-embracing importance of ‘politics’, while the New Right tended to see all politics as ‘a bad thing’ and wished to reduce its importance in order to allow individuals free expression. The New Left wished to tame the market through the state (but not necessarily by the centralized bureaucratic Welfare State), while the New Right wished to abolish or at least seriously reduce the importance of the state and rely simply on markets. These understandings of politics and the state also led to different concepts of democracy. The New Left advocated ‘deliberative’ democracy in which citizens were defined in the republican sense as those who participated in the res publica. For the New Right, democracy was

Introduction: The International Context of French Subnational Governance 7

based on the notion of the citizen as consumer, making choices in a market-type situation. As we shall see, the political and economic philosophy of the latter, which has been called, retrospectively, ‘neo-liberalism’, was to become what Susan George calls the ‘dominant doctrine in the world today’. Territorial politics in the Welfare State The Welfare State model of the state configured central-local relations and territorial politics in a particular way. The emphasis was on centralization in order better to collect and redistribute resources to individuals, groups and backward territories to raise these individuals, groups and territories to the same level as the most advanced sections of society. The underlying logic of this approach was that of building up the national polity rather than as a response to individualism or regionalism. To achieve this aim meant a centralized approach to public policy. Regional policy, for example, was formulated at the centre and directed towards the regions with a view to building up the overall economic capacities of the national territory. It was often implemented without very much input from regional actors. Relations between the central state and subnational authorities followed what may be described as a ‘principal-agent’ model in which the state, the ‘principal’, co-opted sub-national authorities to act as their ‘agents’ in the delivery of welfare services. Local authorities in most Welfare States, whatever model these were, thus found their autonomy seriously reduced as they were highly regulated by the central state. This is true even in the Scandinavian countries where, although local governments occupied an important position in the delivery of welfare services, it was national parliaments and governments which set the parameters for the activities of local authorities who had little scope for deviating from these central regulations.24 In the UK, although local authorities retained some degree of autonomy, the tendency was towards nationally-defined policies which local government was called on to implement with the aim of providing similar levels of service across the entire territory. Even in federal states such as Germany and Austria, the role of the Länder was primarily to administer policies set by the federal government (although in the German case the Länder did have a say in national policy-making through the Bundesrat). In these states, there was also a tendency towards fiscal centralization which further undermined the autonomy of the subnational authorities.

The multiple crises of the Welfare State In the late 1960s and early 1970s, the Welfare State underwent a series of crises, which have been well documented: the fiscal crisis of the state;25 the two oil crises of 1973 and 1979; the economic crisis of western industrial

8 Subnational Government

capitalism with its Fordist production methods.26 Globalization and, in Western Europe, the relaunch of the EC, were the most important responses by industrial and political elites to these challenges. Capitalism successfully reinvented itself through a new world division of labour which entailed the migration of heavy industries to the Far East and the conversion of economic activity to service industries in the old industrialized world. These processes of conversion were largely driven by the United States and Japan, assisted by international organizations such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. The ideological basis of these developments was what subsequently became known as ‘neoliberalism’ which replaced Keynesianism as the new official ideology of capitalism.27 It was symbolized and further encouraged by the collapse in 1973 of the Bretton-Woods system of regulation of exchanges. The elections of Margaret Thatcher as UK Prime Minister in 1979 and of Ronald Reagan as US President in 1980 meant the election of two leaders who espoused the principal theses of neo-liberalism and turned them into a programme of political and economic change, sometimes referred to as Thatcherism and Reaganomics. Among the key institutional and policy reforms on this agenda were: the primacy of market forces for the allocation of public and private goods; the reduction in both the numbers employed in, and the political importance of, the public sector (with the assumption that the private sector is almost always better); deregulation of state controls over private sector activity; the abandonment of the principle of equality, at least of opportunity and the notion that inequality is a greater incentive to entrepreneurship, and other reforms. The arrival of Mrs Thatcher to power thus signalled the end of the post-war consensus as she embarked on a series of measures to marginalize the trade unions, both through legislation and through allowing massive increases in unemployment particularly in the public sector. The United Kingdom and the US went furthest in implementing this agenda in the 1980s but what had begun in these countries spread to other European countries (including France which is the subject of this book), albeit expressed in ways related to the distinct state traditions of those countries.28 ‘Purer’ forms of neoliberalism were applied especially in Latin American countries such as Pinochet’s Chile and, after the collapse of the Soviet Union in the late 1980s, in some of the former communist states. There has been a vigorous debate among scholars of the Welfare State as to the significance of these reforms and whether they have indeed succeeded in significantly changing this into a ‘neo-liberal’ state. According to Ferrera and his co-authors in the work cited above,29 the Welfare State has, in fact, changed very little in recent years. Their argument is based on evidence that fiscal consolidation has increased in OECD states, that is, spending on welfare has continued to expand throughout the so-called neo-liberal period. Unfortunately for their own argument, the authors of

Introduction: The International Context of French Subnational Governance 9

this study then go on to list an impressive array of changes which amount to what is, in effect, a quite radical transformation of the Welfare States they are examining: increased managerialism; (marginal) privatization; (some) decentralization; and largely successful attempts to control budgetary expansion.30 The coy use of parentheses which appear in the original document masks what are much greater shifts in policy and administration than the authors admit. The approach of these authors is a useful corrective to the exaggerated view that a kind of revolution in the nature of the state has occurred but, at the same time, it tends to underestimate the importance of what are very significant changes in the state itself. By concentrating on the quantitative aspects (the continuing rise in public welfare expenditure) it fails to capture one of the most significant changes: the cognitive dimension which has meant a redefinition of the role and functions of the state and of the way in which the different elements of governance that constitute the state are configured. Cognitively and culturally (at the level of aspirations and values), there is today much less commitment on the part of significant elites in western states to the old ideals of the Welfare State such as equality and equity and to the positive role of the state in achieving these ideals. The conceptualization of the state itself has changed: its nature and functions, and its relationship to the economy and society.31 This re-conceptualization of the state sees it less as a top-down, command and control agency capable of bringing about the common good and realizing extensive welfare policy goals, than as a stimulator of those forces of society and the economy that can achieve these themselves. Furthermore, there has been a transformation of the administrative culture of public administration, which is now regarded less as a ‘civil service’ (or in the French case ‘fonction publique’), that is, as a special kind of public organization with its specific features and modes of operation, and more simply as an organization like any organization of the private sector. Of course this simplifies what is actually a quite complex situation, and a feature of the contemporary state is that there now co-exist a number of competing models of public policy and administration within the same state without any one being hegemonic.32 It is this complexity and co-existence of competing models that has given rise to the contemporary pre-occupation with ‘governance’33 with a variety of actors both from the public and private sectors involved in the process of governing an increasingly complex society and economy. The left in several European countries – the PSOE in Spain, the Labour Party in the UK, the French PS and the German SPD – have tried to adapt their ideologies to these new neo-liberal realities while preserving some at least of the principles of Welfarism. This became known as the ‘Third Way’, popularized in a book with that title by Anthony Giddens, a sociologist who had an important influence on Tony Blair’s political reform along these lines.34

10 Subnational Government

It is true that the ‘neo-liberal’ approach and its modified ‘Third Way’ versions are mostly an elite affair engaging key politicians, administrators, business groups and international organizations such as the World Bank, OECD and IMF. The general public in contemporary developed states remain attached to their welfare systems and the values that underlie them.35 This is reflected in a broader debate across Europe, which broke into the open during the 2005 referendums on the European Constitutional Treaty. In France, for example, the debate was, in part, about whether there should be a ‘European Social Model’ (espoused by continental Europeans) and an ‘Anglo-Saxon liberal model’ allegedly held by the British (seen as a kind Trojan horse in Europe for the United States). As we shall see, this broad categorization is itself an over-simplification since, within the European states, and even within political parties can be found both traditional state interventionists and those who espouse the ‘new governance’ approach.

The re-configuration of the State To some extent this is a false debate, and authors such as Ferrera and his colleagues are setting up straw men, who allegedly argue that the Welfare State is being abolished and replaced by a new kind of ‘neo-liberal’ state. Although there have been some rather exaggerated claims about the abolition of the nation-state and the end of welfarism,36 the truth probably lies somewhere between these claims and the counter-claim that Welfare States are still alive and kicking. Underlying this debate are normative issues as to whether the Welfare State ought to survive and as to what the underlying values of public policy ought to be. One has the sense that, on both sides of the argument, normative political and ideological battles are being fought, and this affects the analytical accounts of different authors.37 Social scientists need to step back from this normative conflict and analyse first of all, as accurately as possible, what is really occurring. From this more detached perspective, then, we can speak not of the abolition of the nation-state nor of the end of the Welfare State but of their re-configuration. A key dimension of this reconfiguration, as remarked above, is the cultural and cognitive aspects, which, in turn affect empirical relationships and behaviour. An analysis of this dimension cannot be based simply on measuring public expenditure patterns, important as these are. Rather, it involves trying to capture the way this expenditure is used and the aims and goals it seeks to achieve. There may be similar expenditure to achieve goals quite the opposite of those which were present during the Golden Age. Furthermore, since institutional change occurs at a slower pace than cultural and cognitive change, this means that the outward forms of public administration and policy programmes might have remained more or less the same but their inner content and meaning have changed. For example, the term ‘public

Introduction: The International Context of French Subnational Governance 11

management’ has different meanings at different periods. During the Golden Age it was the public management of expansion with an emphasis on effectiveness in the achievement of clearly defined goals. In the subsequent period of neo-liberal hegemony, it became ‘New Public Management’ (NPM), that is, the management of contraction with an emphasis on efficiency in reducing public expenditure. Nevertheless, although some outward institutional forms have remained more or less the same as before, there have also been significant institutional changes such as occurred with privatization and the setting up of agencies in the United Kingdom or the new forms of inter-municipal association in France.38 As a result, it is possible to discern a number of general tendencies that are affecting all states, although each state has tackled these issues in distinctive ways and in accordance with its own state and political traditions. The following is a summary of some of the most important trends. The various forms of decentralization There are two aspects of this trend which are inter-related. First, the restructuring of the Welfare State is essentially about the decentralization of state functions to subnational levels of government (some functions are ‘devolved’ upwards to the European Union as well). This implies greater variation at the subnational level because of the great variety of situations – socio-economic, demographic, political – which exist at this level. This therefore implies some degree of policy and institutional variation at this level. Thus, decentralization opens up variation in solutions and outcomes at the subnational level. Second, at the same time variation (as a policy goal) can only be achieved if power and competences are decentralized. Decentralization empowers subnational actors so that they can more efficiently take part in competing for resources and develop their own assets. But the very concept of decentralization can have various meanings, depending on the time period in which it occurs and the concrete circumstances of a particular state. Today, there is been a general tendency towards political decentralization in contrast to previous attempts which involved administrative decentralization (what the French refer to as déconcentration).39 The aim of the earlier administrative decentralization was to ease the excessive burdens of the highly centralized political system of the Welfare State but gave little in the way of political decision-making power to lower levels of government. By contrast, the political decentralization of the 1980s and 1990s has been much more about devolving political power and giving regional and local authorities greater decision-making discretion. Examples during this period were the establishment of the Autonomic State (the Estado de las Autonomías) in Spain on the basis of its 1978 Constitution; the decentralization programme in France launched in 1982; the final stage in the transformation of Belgium from a Jacobin unitary state into a highly decentralized federal state; the constitutional

12 Subnational Government

reforms in Italy seeking to create a federal state; and, last but not least, the UK’s devolution reforms beginning in the late 1990s. In Spain, the first wave of decentralization involved the transfer of competences from Madrid to the AC’s and, in the 2000s, there has been a ‘second wave’ in which competences are now being transferred from the AC’s to the provinces and municipalities.40 In France, the decentralization reforms were running out of steam in the late 1980s and this led governments of both left and right (led by Prime Ministers Jospin and Raffarin respectively) to launch Phase 2 (Stade II) of decentralization in an attempt to complete Phase 1. These developments in France are examined throughout the remainder of this book. The Belgian reforms saw the country transform itself from being a classical Jacobin unitary state dominated by the French-speaking population to a complex federal system of linguistic communities and economic regions where the federal state has an almost residual position. In Italy, the emancipation of the local authorities happened as part of wider processes of reform in the 1990s which were a result of the mani pulite legal investigations into political corruption which saw a significant portion of the political class being placed behind bars. There was also a series of referendums which changed the electoral systems at both national and subnational levels and, through the adoption of direct election of regional presidents and mayors, reduced the power of the traditional political parties and facilitated the renewal, to some extent at least, of the political class.41 The United Kingdom was the last of the large European states to adopt a programme of political decentralization (called ‘devolution’ in the UK) after many years of centralization and even ‘hyper’-centralization.42 This trend towards greater political decentralization has been strengthened by both the Council of Europe and the European Union. The Council of Europe adopted the European Charter of Local Self-government in 1985 and this was signed and ratified by member states from 1988 onwards. This Charter, a legal document which, once signed and ratified by a member state, may be used to evaluate the ‘health’ of local democracy in that state.43 There is also a draft European Charter of Regional Self-government, modelled on the Charter on local government, but this has yet to receive unanimous backing from the member states. The European Union, for its part, encouraged the trend by adopting the principles of subsidiarity and partnership when it upgraded European Regional Policy into Structural Action and Cohesion Policy in the mid-1980s. It then incorporated these principles into the 1992 Maastricht Treaty on European Union and they are now regarded as fundamental aspects of the Union’s governance system. This was related to the significant increase in EU funding for regions under the Structural Funds and Cohesion Fund in the mid-1980s. This, in turn, led to a general mobilization of regional and other local authorities across Europe who hoped to gain something from these funds. This gave impetus to the notion of a ‘Europe of the Regions’, which sparked off a wide scholarly

Introduction: The International Context of French Subnational Governance 13

literature on the topic. This literature was largely artificial in the sense that it divided ‘regio-sceptics’ from ‘regio-enthusiasts’, with the former trying to debunk the notion that regions were somehow replacing national governments as the key level of decision-making. The debate was artificial since it consisted largely of the sceptics setting up straw men which were easy enough to knock down as no one, to my knowledge, was seriously arguing that regions should replace nation-states. But a diluted verion of the ‘Europe of the Regions’ idea, promoted especially by the German Länder in the 1990s, did have some importance since it led several states (for example, Greece, Ireland and the Scandinavian countries) to set up regions of some kind and others (France, for example) to strengthen their existing regions. But it also raised expectations that everyone could be a ‘winner’ in this mobilization, whereas, in fact, some subnational authorities would be ‘winners’ and others would be ‘losers’. The importance of these issues may be gauged from the fact that regional and local democracy have been adopted as essential elements of democratic reform by the new states of Eastern and Central Europe following the fall of communism. Asymmetrical diversity vs. symmetrical uniformity The old Welfare State encouraged uniformity and standardization across the national territory in order to ensure there would be no deviation in the standards of services available to citizens of the nation. One of the most striking examples of this was in Sweden and the other Nordic states where, despite their huge geographical size, citizens in different parts of the territory benefited from similar standards of service. The same was true of the United Kingdom and, in some countries such as Germany and Italy, there was a constitutional guarantee that this would be the case. We need to distinguish, however, different kinds of symmetry, asymmetry, uniformity and diversity. In Italy and Spain, these have been political. Italy has its ‘special’ and ‘ordinary’ regions (it is true that this dates from the 1948 Constitution).44 Spain, to some extent influenced by the Italian model, distinguishes in the 1978 Constitution between the ‘one and indivisible nation’ of Spain, on the one hand, and the ‘regions and nationalities on the other’ (the nationalities being the Basque Country, Catalonia and Galicia). The transition to the Autonomic State distinguished between a fast track for the three nationalities (the Basque Country, Catalonia and Galicia as well as Andalusia) who would achieve autonomous status early, and a slow track for the rest.45 Political symmetry may co-exist with administrative asymmetry as, for example, in the United Kingdom which had a highly centralized political system but an asymmetrical territorial administration with the three territorial offices in Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast having distinctive relations with London. There is also a difference between political and administrative symmetry/asymmetry and fiscal symmetry/ asymmetry. In the case of Spain, alongside the political asymmetry

14 Subnational Government

between the four special cases (Andalusia, Catalonia, the Basque Country and Galicia) and the rest, there has been a fiscal asymmetry between the Basque Country and Navarre and the rest of the country (including the three other special cases).46 There is today a general tendency to increase asymmetrical diversity of all three kinds, although the combinations vary in different countries. Even the Scandinavian countries, previously marked by high levels of homogeneity and uniformity despite the vast areas they cover (with the exception of Denmark), are willing to accept some degree of diversity since the 1990s.47 The United Kingdom, having been a state with a high degree of administrative diversity, has also increased its political asymmetry by setting up devolved elected assemblies in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland but where each new institution is quite different from the others. We shall see in greater detail later in this book how France changed its constitution in 2003 to define itself as a ‘République décentralisée’ and also to incorporate the principles of subsidiarity and the right to experimentation by local authorities. This is a far cry from the old system in which all was decided in Paris and uniformly applied across French territory (including its overseas territories). This is not to say that all these states are moving uniformly towards diversity! There are also contradictions and counter tendencies. In the Scandinavian countries, with their strong social democratic traditions, the commitment to provide uniform welfare services of a high level across the country remains very strong and there is an on-going tussle between the social democrats and the centre-right parties in opposition (who seek greater diversity) as well as between the central authorities (in favour of uniformity) and the local authorities (in favour of diversity). 48 In France, the central ministries have tried to recover some of their lost competences and there is still a strong souverainiste movement which is probably a minority of the political class but a majority of the general population. In Spain, the slow track AC’s have sought to catch up with the fast trackers, who, in turn seek to maintain their distance, while the Madrid authorities wish uniformity and the AC’s stress diversity. Interestingly, in the AC’s apart from the Basque Country and Navarre there has been fiscal symmetry despite the continuing political asymmetry. The cases could be multiplied. From the ‘principal-agent’ to the ‘choice’ model and the right to experiment As we have seen, central-local relations during the Welfare State period were characterized as a ‘principal-agent’ model. This changed in the 1980s as central governments either reduced welfare services or even terminated some programmes of resource redistribution.49 In response to these challenges many regional and local authorities made a virtue out of necessity

Introduction: The International Context of French Subnational Governance 15

and began to mobilize their resources and to form alliances with other local authorities both inside and outside their national states. In Scandinavia, Sweden, followed by the other Nordic countries of Denmark, Norway and Finland in that order, the central government launched the ‘free commune’ experiments, which aimed at reducing the regulatory burden of the central state on the activities of local authorities.50 The ‘free communes’ approach was an experiment which lasted from the mid-1980s until the early 1990s and allowed local authorities to adopt distinctive policies and even different kinds of institutional organization in contrast to the previous highly rigid and standardized approach. Although the experiment officially ended in the 1990s, the principles underlying the experiment have become ‘mainstreamed’ and this has increased the diversity of the system in these countries. In Sweden, for example, there are two experimental regions in Skåne and Västra Gotaland which, although constitutionally on the same level as the counties, do have some distinctive characteristics not possessed by the ‘ordinary’ counties.51 In the UK, too, the devolution reforms initiated by the Blair government have included experiments in local authority organization including directly elected mayors and the abolition of the committee system with the establishment of an executive separate from the assembly. To some extent, these shifts have reflected the recognition that regional and local democracy are essential elements of democracy itself and that local autonomy implies some diversity and freedom from central government control.52 For the most part, however, the ‘choice’ model is also an expression of the neo-liberal approach which predominated in western states during the 1980s and 1990s. Local autonomy, in application of the principle of subsidiarity, means deciding local policies at the appropriate level. But, from a neo-liberal perspective, it also means adopting a competitive approach. Without going as far as adopting the fiscal federalism of the United States where society functions quite differently from European countries (see below), from the 1990s onwards there has been a significant increase in competition among regional and local authorities both within their own states and with regional and local authorities more widely as they try to create the conditions necessary to attract inward investment.53 The acceptance of ‘diversity’ might also mean the acceptance of disparities in wealth and levels of socio-economic development at the territorial level in the same way that neo-liberalism accepts these at the level of individuals and social classes. As national governments have become less involved in developing explicit policies to reduce these disparities, the European Union has stepped in with its own structural action and cohesion policies. Even if these are conditional on matched funding from central governments, the latter are relieved of important functions which they had exercised during the heyday of the Welfare State.

16 Subnational Government

Changing patterns of fiscal relations54 Local autonomy is viable only if it is accompanied by fiscal autonomy, that is, the right and capacity of local authorities to raise their own revenues or to have a degree of discretion over those fiscal resources they receive from central governments. There are two opposing arguments found in the academic literature with regard to the decentralization of control over local funding. The first was made in the 1950s in a situation of (national) welfare economics. It contends that ‘only central governments could achieve local economic efficiency through policies of fiscal equalisation and redistribution’.55 The counter-argument, known as fiscal federalism or fiscal decentralization, stresses that local fiscal autonomy is necessary as a way of increasing the accountability and responsiveness of subnational governments. Fiscal federalism was the application of this notion to local authorities and was based on the idea that local authority citizens could choose from among a variety of services offered by different local authorities by simply moving residence from one authority to the other. This was meant to lead to the optimal allocation of resources in a market situation and to local authorities adapting services to local circumstances. It implied high levels of local political, policy and fiscal autonomy and high levels of mobility among the citizenry. Of course, these conditions are more characteristic of the United States than they are of European countries, including the UK, which is closest to the American model. Nevertheless, there have been some attempts to apply principles of fiscal federalism within Europe. These two approaches to fiscal policy reflect the above-mentioned difference between choice and agency models of local-central government relations. In the choice model, local authorities are seen as being best placed to make decisions that reflect the needs and preferences of their local communities. In the agency model, local authorities are seen first and foremost as agents carrying out policies on behalf of the principal, which is central government. Under the principal-agent model, local authorities had a low degree of discretion and the majority of grants received from central government were ear-marked for specific purposes. But one of the underlying causes of the crisis of the Welfare State model was, precisely, the ‘fiscal crisis of the state’ and the inability of the state itself to fund the everincreasing demands of its own policy programmes.56 Thus, among the first casualties of the crisis were the local authorities themselves. In the UK, under Mrs Thatcher’s premiership, funding for local authorities was drastically reduced and one of their most important own resources, the business tax, was transferred to the national government. More generally what has occurred in Europe is the application of a market-type approach even if this is not full-blown fiscal federalism. The main expression of this has been the EU’s single market project reinforced by the drive towards the creation of a common currency and

Introduction: The International Context of French Subnational Governance 17

the criteria of fiscal rectitude laid out in the Maastricht Treaty. These represent the arrival of a new financial orthodoxy which affects not just the countries of the Eurozone, but those EU countries outside it like Sweden and the UK and even those outside the EU such as Norway. National governments are held accountable (within the EU by the European Central Bank and, outside the EU, by organizations such as the International Monetary Fund) for the application of this new fiscal orthodoxy and, for this reason, have begun to regulate the activities of local authorities in areas such as borrowing and budgetary control. This leads to contradictory situations. While there has been greater political decentralization as pointed out above, there has also been greater fiscal centralization. Furthermore, central governments have tended to off-load burdensome tasks onto subnational authorities without always providing the necessary financial and other resources to fulfil these tasks. This has been called the ‘decentralization of penury’, and often takes place under the guise of enhancing local democracy. The situation is even more complex in that most countries today combine the ‘agency’ and ‘choice’ models, though most will emphasize one or the other as the dominant tendency.57 This combination of models leads to a great deal of variety in the fiscal arrangements of European states but one overall trend has been an increase in grants from central governments and a decrease in ‘own resources’, such as local taxes and fees. This might suggest less local autonomy but it is also the case that central grants are becoming less ear-marked and more general.58 This means that, despite losing some of their fiscal resources, local authorities may still retain a certain amount of fiscal autonomy if they have discretion over how the grants are used. A good example is the Netherlands where about 80 per cent of local government funding comes in the form of central government grants but the majority of these are in the form of block grants. In the UK, by contrast, 75 per cent of funding comes from central government but there is a smaller percentage that is discretionary. On the other hand, if a local authority raises its own resources but these may have to fund tasks decided by central government, then that local authority has less discretion. From hierarchy to ‘equality of levels’ A final trend that we might note in this survey of changes in territorial governance from the Welfare State to a more pluralistic state model is the abandonment in a number of states of a hierarchical relationship among different levels of government. In Sweden, the counties and municipalities are on the same level and the two experimental regions do not have a hierarchical relationship with the municipalities found within them. In France, too, there is equality among the three subnational levels of government, the region, the department and the municipality. This was a deliberate choice made when the regions were established since the ‘departmentalist’

18 Subnational Government

lobby in France feared that the regions might be in a superior position over the departments (as the departments had been over the communes). To avoid this, all hierarchy below the central state was abolished. In the UK, there are no regions in England so the issue does not arise but it does in the case of Scotland and Wales. In these countries, the Scottish Parliament and National Assembly for Wales are responsible for local government funding and this gives them some leeway over their activities but, in theory anyway, they do not control them in a hierarchical manner. The relationship is managed rather through ‘partnership’ arrangements – in Wales, the ‘Partnership Council’ and in Scotland there has been a growth of partnership working between the parliament and the local authorities.59 In the Netherlands, the provinces are relatively weak levels of government which do not dominate the municipalities (gemeente), while the latter exist in a kind of corporatist relationship with the central state.60 In other countries, such as Italy and Spain, the regions and AC’s are in a relationship of superiority over the provinces and municipalities but the general trend is towards non-hierarchical relations. This can be explained by the increasing political and policy relevance of local authorities over the past number of years as exemplified and promoted by the European Charter of Local Self-Government, which demands the respect for local autonomy even by other levels of subnational government such as regions. There has been a tendency in some cases, such as Flanders and Catalonia, for regions to adopt a kind of ‘mini-Jacobinism’, whereby they dominate and constrain lower levels of government. The European Charter deems such tendencies as unacceptable constraints on local autonomy. At the same time, this nonhierarchical model does make the division of powers among levels of government rather more complex as many of these powers are shared given the complex nature of contemporary policy-making. The French solution was to assign ‘blocs’ of competences to a particular sub-national authority, but this has not worked well in practice and has led to greater confusion. Nevertheless, despite these difficulties, the development of ‘nonhierarchical systems of governance’, reflecting the wider shifts from ‘principal-agent’ to ‘choice’ models has meant that relations among levels of government now exist in new and varying configurations. This is both an opportunity and a danger for the subnational entities as they are now more independent of each other and of the central state but also in competition with each other as they are largely responsible for their own economic, social and political development albeit usually in partnership with the central state. The opportunity is that they may become more developed; the danger is that they might fall behind. This calls for a new definition of the role of the state which still has the function of ensuring national unity and solidarity.

Introduction: The International Context of French Subnational Governance 19

Conclusions to the reflections on the context of change It is evident from the above analysis that there have been significant shifts in the configuration of the traditional nation-state which reached its apotheosis in the form of the post-war Welfare State. Although neither the nation-state nor the Welfare State has been ‘abolished’, there have been significant changes with regard to their nature, role and functions, particularly with regard to their internal forms of territorial organization. There has been a significant strengthening of regional and local autonomy (and therefore of subnational territorial governance) at least at the constitutional, political and administrative levels, but this has not always been accompanied by an increase in fiscal autonomy. This does not mean that the other forms of autonomy are simply fictitious. They are also important resources although clearly greater financial resources would enhance them even further. But what does seem to be the case is that there is now a greater disparity among subnational authorities, even within the same state, giving rise to competition among them so that the stronger may get stronger and the weak weaker. Some states, such as Sweden and Spain attempt to counteract this trend through equalization systems although there is today less acceptance of this than in the past as the richer cities and regions like Stockholm and Catalonia increasingly resent subsidizing their poorer fellow citizens in the less developed parts of the country. In this shifting scenario of governance, regions and local authorities have emerged as key players but this subnational mobilization is characterized by a great variety of situations and experiences. What is striking today is that the great mobilization of regions that occurred in the 1990s subsided after the setting up of the Committee of the Regions, which proved something of a disappointment to the regionalist lobby and, in particular, to the German Länder. It is striking that while this mobilization occurred around the time of the negotiations which led up to the Maastricht Treaty, there was little mobilization of regions during the Amsterdam and Nice negotiations and the issue was barely mentioned (except for some modest improvements of the position of the Committee of the Regions). A new mobilization occurred at the time of the Convention on the Future of Europe as, at the beginning of this process, the regions were barely present and the Committee of the Regions had only observer status. In the end, while the Committee of Regions did make some gains (with regard to the guardianship of subsidiarity) the overall gains for regions were quite modest.61 But the Convention and its outcome did have an important impact on the nature of regional mobilization. Now there was a division between the strong regions, those with legislative powers, which formed new groupings and the rest, those without these powers, who continued to be represented by the Assembly for European Regions. This division means it is unlikely that the regional interest will occupy an important place in

20 Subnational Government

the architecture of the EU but at least it has some place rather than none as was the case before.

The plan of this book This book is dedicated to exploring how these general trends have affected the French system of territorial governance. The general approach adopted is first to provide a general overview of the French case (Part I). This follows what has been called the historical institutionalist approach to social science which argues that history lays down ‘path dependencies’ that affect future developments. In the French case, an important ‘moment’ was the French Revolution which began in 1789 but this in turn can be understood only within the context of the evolution of the French monarchy towards the centralized state (Chapter 1). The Revolution is important, not simply for overthrowing the Absolute Monarchy, but also for creating the political institutions of modern France, especially those at the subnational level. Napoleon I completed this process by setting up the prefectoral system of central-local control. Very much in line with the argument laid out in this introductory chapter, the setting up of the postwar French Welfare State completed this process of centralization and the territorial dimension of this is examined in Chapter 2. But even during the period of the Fifth Republic set up in the early 1960s, it was recognized that some decentralization was necessary, and Chapter 3 provides an overview of the decentralization reforms which began to be applied when the François Mitterrand and his Socialist Party came to power in 1981. Again in line with the argument of this Introduction, the meaning of decentralization changed over time and, by the 1990s, had come to be seen as, at least in part, an application of the principles of neo-liberalism. These contextual chapters provide an overview for the remainder of the book. Subsequent chapters ‘zoom in’ on particular aspects of these reforms and examine in some details the different dimensions of subnational government in France. This inevitably leads to some repetition, and the author asks the reader’s patience when this does happen. Part II examines the institutions of subnational governance, the municipalities (Chapter 4) and the various attempts to cope with their vast number, and the tussle between the departments and regions for control of the ‘meso’-space between the municipality and the central state (Chapter 5). Part III looks at the different aspects of how the institutions are made to work: the political (Chapter 6), the administrative (Chapter 7) and the financial (Chapter 8). The book is rounded off with some final conclusions. To a great extent, the book builds on a great deal of research and analysis on the theme of French local governance undertaken especially by scholars in France62 but also some in the United Kingdom.63 But, to my knowledge, there is no single work in English which synthesizes this quite considerable

Introduction: The International Context of French Subnational Governance 21

body of research on the French case and places it in the wider context of trends in territorial governance in advanced capitalist states. Our aim in this book is to make a modest contribution to this literature and to present some of the issues to a wider non-French speaking readership.

Acknowledgements This book is the fruit of many years of contact with France and of many friendships developed both within and outside the French academic community. The late Vincent Wright of Nuffield College, Oxford and Professor Yves Mény, currently President of the European University Institute, were important early influences as supervisors of my PhD on Corsican nationalism written what seems a lifetime ago. More immediately, I would like to thank Professor Robert Elgie, editor of this book series on French politics, for his patience as one broken deadline succeeded another and for his kindness and helpfulness in reading and commenting on the manuscript when it did finally arrive. My colleague at Cardiff, Professor David Hanley, has been both a good friend and a perceptive critic who read the entire manuscript in its final stages. Anders Lidstrom, of the University of Umeå, read and commented on some of the early chapters providing some valuable insights. Julian Wright, of the University of Durham and historian of 19 th century French regionalism, gave useful feedback on the historical chapter. Although my other good friend and colleague in Cardiff, Dr Graeme Garrard, spent much time (vainly) trying to make me into an atheist, he also was an invaluable source of information on Rousseau and the Enlightenment, of which he is a leading authority. Some French colleagues also deserve a word of thanks for the stimulation of their friendship and the acuteness of their academic insights in this field of study: Bernard Jouve, Daniel-Louis Seiler, Emmanuel Négrier, Jacques Palard, Pierre Muller, Pierre Sadran, Patrick Le Galès, Richard Balme, and Vincent Hoffmann-Martinot. Although these all contributed in different ways to my understanding of this field of study, the usual rejoinder holds that I alone take responsibility for the contents of this book. Alain Delcamp, now Secretary General of the French Senate, introduced me both to the senatorial vision of local government and to membership of the Committee of Independent Experts of the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of Europe. Finally, I would like to thank a number of academic institutions which offered me generous visiting positions over the past number of years which allowed me the time and space to work on this book: the Instituts d’Etudes Politiques in Paris, Bordeaux and Aix-en-Provence, Merton College and St Antony’s College, Oxford, the European University Institute, Florence and the Royal Flemish Academy of Belgium for Arts and Sciences.

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Part I General Overview of the French Case

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1 Centralization and Decentralization in French History

French politics and society have been dominated by two conflicting tendencies. On the one hand, there is the centuries-long trend towards centralization, beginning under the French monarchs and culminating in the French Revolution and the First Napoleonic Empire. On the other hand, as historians such as Fernand Braudel have shown, there is the great diversity of France with its variety of climates, landscapes, regional cuisines and, historically, political, social and economic systems.1 Although modern French school children were taught that the ‘Hexagon’, as France was called in reference to its final shape, had a kind of natural unity, this diversity is the result of a long process of piecemeal accumulation of territories between the Atlantic and the Mediterranean Sea. As General De Gaulle is said to have remarked, perhaps apocryphally, ‘You can unite the French only through fear. You simply cannot bring together a country that has over 365 kinds of cheese’. Indeed, centralization was born partly out of conquest and partly out of fear. It was an attempt by the country’s ruling elites to answer the question: how could they dominate and keep under control such a vast and diversified country?

The centralized monarchy The French centralized state has its origins in the efforts of the French monarchs to consolidate their power, beginning with the Capetian Dynasty (987–1328) and culminating with the Bourbons (1589–1792). The French kings fought battles on two fronts: against external enemies and, within, against the nobles and the Church and, after the Reformation, Protestant groups. ‘France’ was founded by a group of Franks known as the Merovingians who, at first, controlled an area around Paris. It was a fluctuating group of territories whose boundaries were continually changing and became an independent entity when Charlemagne’s empire was divided into three parts at the Treaty of Verdun (843): Eastern Francia, Middle Francia and Western Francia, which covered an area more or less that of 25

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modern France. In 987, Hugh Capet, the Duke of France and Count of Paris, was crowned King of France, The Capetians and the Valois and Bourbon dynasties which succeeded them, extended their control in two directions: against their neighbours and external enemies; and internally through a process of centralization. The centralized French state occupying the territory of the Hexagon, which finally emerged out of these struggles, was not the only possible outcome.2 Another strong contender was an Anglo-French kingdom straddling the island and the north-west and west of the continent, a goal to which English kings, from William the Conqueror to Henry VI of Lancaster, aspired and which was one of the driving factors behind the Hundred Years War. Another was the Burgundy Confederation led by Charles the Bold (1433–1477) which, in the 14th and 15th centuries, challenged the French King. The challenge which came from this direction was continued by the Holy Roman Emperors and, especially by Charles V (1500–1556). But, in the end, it was the monarchy centred in Paris which emerged successful and gradually forged the unity of the French state and out of this emerged the French nation. The monarchy provided the basic materials of French identity and nationhood, but this evolved slowly. At first, the Franks saw themselves as a ‘people’ (‘Long live Christ who loves the Franks’ said an old Salian3 slogan). But this gave way to the notion of ‘territory’ so that the king was not elected by the people but was the possessor of a territory – France. By the middle of the 12th century, the territory became idealized with the image of a person (the Virgin) and its own symbols which overlap with those of the monarchy (the fleur de lys).4 During the Middle Ages, the French, like other European peoples, had a strong sense of identity and of patriotism. In 1297, the Archbishop of Reims wrote that it was the duty of the clergy to ‘défendre le royaume et la patrie’. And, by the middle of the 14th century, could be heard the slogans ‘vrai Français’, ‘noble Français’ and ‘bon Français’.5 We are, nevertheless, still some way from the modern idea of nationhood and its identification with the state and a fixed territory. On the one hand, this territory is divisible and may be composed and recomposed by the king. On the other hand, the monarchy itself is one and indivisible, an idea which lays the long-term historical basis of the modern French state. We should, however, be careful not to see the formation of a centralized state as a simple teleological process that was easily accomplished but rather one that took place over long periods of time and, even today, is still not fully completed. The mediaeval period, in fact, was marked by the complex phenomenon known as feudalism, which was characterized by mutually dependent relationships between lords and vassals, and this relationship also characterized relations between the king and the nobility.6 It was against this background of multiple, overlapping systems of sovereignty and mutual interdependence that the process of monarchical cen-

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tralization should be set. Nevertheless, it did slowly become the dominant feature of the French state and, eventually, led to the arrival of the Absolute Monarchy by the 17th century. As we shall see, this provided the material for the kind of state which was adopted in France at the French Revolution.

The expansion of the monarchy based in Paris Without going into great historical detail, we can say that the central core of the French kingdom around Paris expanded through a combination of war, conquest and dynastic alliances over a period of several centuries. Provinces such as Brittany, Burgundy and Normandy had been quasiindependent duchies with a close association with France before becoming provinces of the French kingdom. The Hundred Years War with England (1337–1453), which is the name given to a series of disparate conflicts between the two kingdoms, had the effect of consolidating the French sense of identity and drew in neighbouring territories such as Brittany and Normandy. As Charles Tilly has shown, it was the experience of war and the necessity to finance war that forced the monarchy to extend its control over French society through taxation and creating an administrative framework to collect these taxes.7 Of course, as Tilly remarks, state elites did not necessarily set out to achieve a centralized state, but this was the sometimes unintended consequence of their actions. In order to consolidate its control, the monarchy also had to defeat its rivals within the territories it already controlled. The most important of these rivals were the great nobles whose fiefdoms were in the provinces and who, under the feudal system, were lords of their own domains. This meant, in effect, a number of distinct and sovereign systems often with different laws, weights and measures, and administrative systems. Northern France, being under the control of the Frankish kings, followed the Germanic common law or droit coutumier, while in the south, as in the rest of southern Europe (as well as Scotland), it was Roman law which prevailed. But both systems of law were far from standardized and many local variations existed. Measures, too, varied from place to place. ‘Under the ancien régime many different weights and measures were used in different parts of France, not always with the same meanings’.8 A lieue (English ‘league’) in one part of France would have a different length in another. Similarly, weights varied from one area to another. These differences were important given that tariffs were imposed on goods traded between one area and another and, given the variations in weights and measures, there was scope for cheating and injustice on a large scale. The monarchy represented a force of unification and standardization in the face of this great diversity although, given the rudimentary state of communications during the Middle Ages and the resistance of the

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provinces, this came about only slowly. Even when there was a kind of standardization, the provinces still retained a degree of autonomy from Paris. This was the case with the provincial parlements, which were the forerunners of our modern parliaments and, in the middle ages, evolved out the royal court (the curia Regis). In France, the parlements were primarily courts in the sense of legal assemblies dispensing justice and passing legislation and were founded by the provincial nobility in imitation of the Paris court. They existed alongside the ordinary courts and were, to some extent, their rivals. The parlement de Paris was the earliest to be founded, and the others followed suit being created at different periods from the 15th to the 17th centuries.9 The fact that the provincial parlements were set up in imitation of Paris (a practice which has continued to the present day) meant there was already a certain amount of standardization. At the same time, the provincial parlements tried to maintain their autonomy from Paris and often resisted the royal edicts. Furthermore, they were very much aristocratic institutions and contained the many different orders of French nobility, from the noblesse d’épée to the noblesse de robe.10 Thus, they were very far removed from a democratic assembly in the sense in which this is true modern of parliaments. In the 17th century, the nobles chafed under the royal yoke and there were several revolts against this, known as the Fronde, and involving the parlements (1648–1652). Different monarchs were able to deal both with the bewildering variety of customs and with the frondiste tendencies of the nobles in function of their financial and military resources which, in turn, depended to a large extent on whether or not the monarch was at war with external enemies. The latter was usually the case, as France sought to extend its control across Europe and, with the creation of overseas colonies in North America, fight off threats from other imperialist powers, especially the English. One mechanism of control over the provinces was through royally-appointed officials who first appeared with the name of commissioner mid-way through the 16th century and, by the middle of the next century, became better known as the Intendants des Finances. The Intendants, forerunners of the Napoleonic prefects, supervised the local courts (but not the parlements with whom they were frequently in conflict), the collection of taxes, military affairs and were meant to keep order. It was Cardinal Richelieu (1585–1642) who, as First Minister of Louis XIII (1610–1643), undertook the task of bringing the fractious nobility to heel. Louis became king at the age of nine and France was ruled by a Regency government, headed by his mother Marie de Medici. Marie left the practical work of governing to Richelieu who, despite his ecclesiastical status, proved to be a greater statesman than one who practised the spirit of the Sermon on the Mount, as he ruthlessly suppressed internal dissent. But Richelieu was an important figure in creating the intellectual and cultural foundations of the French state since it was he who founded the Académie

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Française, the guardian of the French language, and who patronized the arts in general, generously subsidizing writers such as Corneille. When Louis XIV (1613–1715) succeeded his father Louis XIII to the throne, Cardinal Mazarin (1602–1661) became his mentor and then First Minister. Mazarin and Louis XIV continued the centralizing policies of their predecessors but carried them further with the creation of the Absolute Monarchy. King Louis, also known as the ‘Sun King’, set up a splendid court at Versailles and controlled the nobility by inviting them to become his ministers at the court, but, in effect, reducing them politically to near impotence.

The monarchy and the Catholic faith There was already a Christian presence in France when Gaul was a province of the Roman Empire. One of the oldest dioceses was Lyon, whose second bishop, in 177, was St. Irenaeus (ca. 130–200). Irenaeus was a disciple of Polycarp, who may have known St. John the Evangelist in Asia Minor. But it was the baptism of Clovis (465–511), King of the Franks around 500 AD11 which cemented the link between throne and altar; this would be built upon by successive monarchs. France eventually became known as ‘the eldest daughter of the Church’ and its monarchs usually sided with the Papacy in the latter’s conflicts with the Holy Roman Emperor for hegemony in Europe. An interesting example of the way in which the French monarchy used the Church to consolidate its power and expand its territory can be found in the 13th century with the events known as the Albigensian crusades. The Albigensians (from the town of Albi in the south of France) were a branch of a Christian heretical sect known as the Cathars (from the Greek katharoi, meaning ‘the pure ones’). Their main bases were in the south of France in parts of what is now the region of Languedoc-Roussillon, which was then outside the control of the French monarchy. This area, today known as Occitania, possessed an advanced literary and intellectual culture and was the home of the Troubadors. The Troubadors were poets who wrote in the langue d’oc, a romance langue so-called because of the way in which the word ‘yes’ is said: ‘oc’ in contrast to ‘oui’ in the north of France and ‘si’ in Italy and Spain. The Albigensians were dualists, believing that matter was evil and spirit good, and may have had their origins in the doctrines of Mani, whose followers were known as Manicheans and included the young St Augustine at one stage in his life. The Albigensians rejected everything that was connected with matter and this included the sacraments of the Church as well as bodily pleasures including sex. They also rejected the dogma of the Incarnation and regarded Christ as an angel with a bodily form. Perfection came through an abandonment of worldly things and escape from the body to the spiritual life through ascetic

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practices and austerity. But, since this ideal was beyond most people, the Albigensians split into two groups, the ‘perfect’, who could obtain the ‘consolamentum’ (the baptism of the Holy Spirit through the imposition of hands) in this life and the ‘ordinary’ believers who could lead normal lives and had to wait until they died before reaching perfection.12 The teachings and practices of the Albigensians were clearly heretical and this led to a series of crusades over a period of about 20 years before they were finally defeated. The crusades involved both preaching by the newly founded Dominican order and St Dominic himself as well military actions by the French king and noblemen. They also encouraged the institutionalization of the Inquisition, an ecclesiastical court set up to try heretics. The reward for the secular protagonists was they would possess the land that had belonged to the heretics and the most important result for the French monarchy was that its territory almost doubled by the end of the crusades. But it also cemented the relationship between Catholic orthodoxy, the papacy and the monarch. There is today on the part of many on the left a nostalgic and romantic vision of the Cathars which interprets them sympathetically as rebels against ecclesiastical and civil authority. It is doubtful, however, whether many soixante-huitards would choose to live in a Cathar community given their aversion to sex and the comforts of the flesh. But the Cathars also live on in the memory of those who wish to revive and retain the Occitan culture and language since their religious and military defeat was also to some extent a cultural and linguistic one as well.

The Reformation The 16th century Reformation was another key moment of French history when religion and politics were intertwined and the outcome of the struggles determined the future shape of the French state. While almost all of northern Europe (with the exception of Ireland) adopted the new Protestant religion, whether in its Lutheran, Calvinist or Anglican forms, most of southern Europe remained steadfastly Catholic as did the Holy Roman Emperor. In between these two great religious zones was an intermediate belt which contained both Protestants and Catholics – the Netherlands, southern Germany, parts of central Europe such as Bohemia. Although France remained overwhelmingly Catholic, it was part of this intermediate group with significant Protestant strongholds in various parts of the country. Interestingly, one of their strongholds was that part of southern France which had been the country of the Cathars, and there may be a historical continuity between the two groups. The French Protestants, known as Huguenots (probably derived from the German word Eidgenossen, meaning ‘confederates’, that is, those admitted to the Swiss Confederation) were, in their majority, Calvinists rather than Lutheran. This meant that

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politically they tended to be opposed to hierarchy, monarchy and ritualized forms of Christianity and were more sympathetic to democracy and individual freedom.13 These differences led to the French Wars of Religion in the 16th century, when Protestants and Catholics fought each other for control of the state. It is interesting to speculate whether a Protestant victory would have to led to a different kind of state in France, one more similar to England or the Netherlands. In the end, however, the wars came to an end with the conversion of Henry IV to Catholicism in 1593. Henry is famous for the phrase that ‘Paris vaut bien une messe’ (Paris, that is, France, is worth a Mass). At first, the Huguenots were tolerated under the Edict of Nantes, signed by Henry in 1598. This period of toleration came to an end with the Revocation of the Edict in 1685 by Cardinal Richelieu. By the time of Louis XIV, however, although France remained strongly Catholic, there was some breaking away from dependence on Rome. The notion of the ‘divine right of kings’, which had been developing in previous centuries was now at its height and the French hierarchy, closely linked to the nobility, developed a kind of independence known as Gallicanism. Already, in the 16th century, the pope had conceded to the French king the right to appoint bishops and other high ecclesiastical officials. Furthermore, the higher clergy were the second of the three estates of French society and enjoyed many privileges such as tax exemption. Many nobles inherited ecclesiastical positions including bishoprics and abbacies but were entirely neglectful of their duties and, in fact, these were simply seen as benefices. The result of this was a highly corrupt system which during the 18th century attracted a great deal of criticism from intellectuals within France and elsewhere. At the same time, France was engaged in a series of wars with other European powers which left it financially bankrupted with the burden of paying for these wars falling on the Third Estate and the peasantry.

The 18th century philosophers This was the context in which arose the philosophers of the Enlightenment such as Voltaire, Rousseau, Montesquieu and Holbach, who also contributed to the Encyclopaedia edited by Diderot and D’Alembert. Although there were important differences in the political philosophies of these writers (for example Voltaire and Rousseau were bitterly opposed on many things), they did agree on a number of key issues and would provide the ideas which underlay the Revolution and the modern French state which followed it. They wished to see an end to the absolute monarchy, although few were republicans and most would have been happy with a constitutional monarchy along English lines. But they were also united in their belief that traditional religion, especially Catholicism, which they regarded as based on superstition and authority (both the authority of revealed

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scripture and an authoritarian church which interpreted it) should give way to Reason and the rational organization of politics and society. Most of them were not against religion as such and they seemed to be ‘deists’,14 a rather loose term which denotes acceptance of God as a divine being but not a personal God who intervenes in men’s affairs. On the contrary, the deist God was an impersonal ‘deus ex machina’, a being which had created the world and left it to go on its way without further intervention. In other words, man, rather than God or a hierarchical church, was at the centre of life, and it was man’s free rational choices and not tradition that should determine political and social organization. The 18 th century philosophers developed a number of ideas about the organization of the political system that were the intellectual foundations of the modern state. Montesquieu (1689–1755) in his De l’esprit des lois (1748) set forth the theory of democracy as the separation of the powers of state, legislative, executive and judicial, which was influential in the design of the political and judicial institutions of the new American Republic in 1787 but less so in 18 th century France. Voltaire (1694–1778) was highly impressed by the constitutional monarchy and parliamentary democracy of the United Kingdom (which benefited the middle classes). But he was probably more influential in a negative sense through the impact of his polemical writings, which were savage satires against French political institutions and the Church. Voltaire, although not a democrat in the sense that he wished the common people to participate in the exercise of power, was a strong advocate of the right to free speech and other liberties such as were found in the England of his day. But probably the figure who most influenced the coming Revolution and the territorial organization of the modern French state was JeanJacques Rousseau (1712–1778), although he himself might have been surprised, had he lived long enough, at the use to which his ideas were put. Key ideas which he developed were the notion of a ‘social contract’ as the foundation of society (man is responsible for the construction of society through a free choice), that all men are equal as individuals but also that there is something called a ‘general will’, which overrides particular wills. Perhaps the most famous line, found in his work The Social Contract, is ‘Man is born free, and is everywhere in chains’. 15 But Rousseau, like other 18 th century thinkers, thought that man was once born into a ‘state of nature’ but that this became gradually corrupted with competition between men and ensuing authoritarian government threatening his freedom. By a social contract, men could counteract these tendencies by establishing a general will, enforced by magistrates, which would provide order and, at the same time, leave individuals free. Rousseau also developed the notion that sovereignty derived from the people and not from the king or any other source of authority such as the Church.

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The French Revolution and the First Empire At the end of the 18th century, France experienced a series of developments that culminated in the Great Revolution of 1789 and the following years and which produced one of the most dramatic regime changes in history. It is outside the scope of this work to try to describe or explain these events in detail and the reader is referred to the voluminous literature on the subject.16 What interests here in this brief historical survey is the impact that the Revolution and the Napoleonic Empire which followed it had on France’s territorial organization. Suffice to say that the French monarchy, led by Louis XVI, was running into serious trouble thanks to a series of expensive and disastrous wars both in Europe and overseas, the state was in fiscal crisis, bad harvests had left the peasantry and working classes without sufficient food and the Third Estate and part of the nobility were in a state of revolt against the King. Although there were revolutionaries among the protagonists from the beginning, the leaders of the events of 1789 did not set out to overthrow the old system but rather simply to reform it. The majority of those who wished for change would have been content with a parliamentary democracy and constitutional monarchy along English lines. But both the intransigence of the King and the aristocracy and the pressures from the more radical elements among the revolutionaries ensured that this did not happen. Instead, proposals for reform changed to revolution with increasingly radical measures with the Jacobin reign of terror (1792–1795) and the execution of the king and his family in 1793.17 What is important here is that the more extreme revolutionaries such as Maximilien Robespierre (1758–1794), and Georges Danton (1759–1794) were keen advocates of the ideas of Rousseau and sought to implement them in the new France. The territorial organization of France which followed the Revolution was marked by both continuity and change. What was maintained was the tendency towards the creation of a centralized state which had been a feature of the monarchy. The revolutionaries also thought that the state was ‘one and indivisible’ as the monarchy had itself defined its own sovereignty several centuries previously. Like the monarch, too, they sought to bring under control the great diversity of France with its multitude of customs and habits and the different corporatist systems that still existed at the time of the Revolution.18 But where they differed from the Ancien Régime was in their understanding of the locus of sovereignty and authority. At least the more radical revolutionaries, influenced by the ideas of Rousseau, now saw this as emanating from ‘the people’, although there were different understandings of who qualified to be a member of ‘the people’. For some, it was only men of property and education; for others, it was all adults, men and women. Related to this notion of the people was a new understanding of the nation. Previously, the nation was thought to be embodied in the king. Now, the ‘nation’ was the political expression of ‘the people’. Once again, Rousseau

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provided the theoretical foundation of this new understanding with his concepts of the social contract, the foundation of the idea of popular sovereignty, and the general will, which explained the concept of nation-hood. These led to the development of the notion of citizenship – a member of the nation was someone who had the right to participate in the public affairs – the res publica – of the nation. The problem was that Rousseau had been thinking of small-scale communities such as his native Geneva when he formulated his ideas. France, at the end of the 18th century, however, was already a large country with many millions of inhabitants, and so there developed the notion of representative democracy, a concept which Rousseau would have strongly opposed. The final important development of political theory that is worth noting here and which is highly important for the subject of this book is the coupling of ‘nation’ and ‘state’. Previously, states and nations had coexisted without being necessarily attached as with the Austro-Hungarian Empire or the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, each of which consisted of several nations held together by a looseknit overarching state. It is true that there were territorial states, such as Sweden and England and Scotland before the Act of Union, which more or less coincided with nations. But, in these cases, the term ‘nation’ did not have the same meaning that it would have from the time of the Revolution, where it signified the entire body of citizens.19 This also gave rise to the notion of ‘civic’ nationalism as opposed to ‘ethnic’ nationalism which was supposed to be characteristic of Germany. Henceforth, nation and state would join in a couple – the nation-state – whereby the state was an emanation of the nation, the boundaries of one denoting the boundaries of the other. Furthermore, there developed the normative idea that each nation ought to have its own state, thus giving rise to the ideology of nationalism, which would eventually lead to the dissolution of empires and the formation of new states to become the dominant form of political organization in the 19th and 20th centuries. This notion of the nation-state, combined with the notion of the unity and indivisibility of the republic would become one of the determinants of French territorial organization from this point onwards.20 The threats from the outside came from the other European powers such as England, Austria-Hungary, and Prussia and consolidated this sense of popular nation-hood and led to what was probably the first mass mobilization in the name of the nation in history, when the lower classes of French society rallied to the call to arms. This movement is expressed in the French national anthem, the Marseillaise: Aux armes citoyens Formez vos bataillons Marchons, marchons Qu’un sang impur Abreuve nos sillons.

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One important consequence of this conception of the nation-state as one and indivisible was the drive to create a society that was culturally and linguistically uniform. French citizenship, as described by Ernst Renan in his famous lecture to the Alsatians, was meant to be based on the act of choosing to be a citizen, in contrast to the German conception which was based on the notion of both ‘blood kinship’ and culture (the concepts of ius sanguinis and Kulturnation). In practice, however, the French soon adopted something similar to the German conception in the sense that they conceived the French language and culture to be synonymous with the Revolution and with progress. Furthermore, the great majority of people living within the bounds of the Hexagon, mostly peasants living within a very restricted geographical area who rarely travelled, did not speak French, which was the language of the elites, but regional languages and dialects, such as Basque, Breton, Corsican Occitanian, Provençal and Germanic dialects (in Flanders and Alsace). The strongest resistance to the Revolution came from these populations, particularly in the west of the country such as the Vendée. Although certain sections of these populations, mainly the professional and middle classes, supported the Revolution, the majority, mainly the aristocracy, the clergy and the peasantry, were often deeply attached both to the Church and to the traditional corporatist societies of which they were part. This led them to stage armed revolts against the Revolution, immortalized by Balzac in his novel Les Chouans. But the Parisian revolutionaries looked on these populations with a jaundiced eye and were deeply suspicious of them and of their languages and cultures. Their contempt and fear was expressed by Barrère in a report to the Convention in 1794: ‘le fédéralisme [that is, reaction] parle bas-breton’ and ‘l’émigration [the aristocracy in exile] et la haine de la République parlent allemand’. These sentiments were reaffirmed in a further 1794 report drawn up by the Abbé Grégoire who proposed draconian action which was: ‘d’anéantir les patois et d’universaliser la langue francaise’. These attitudes towards minority languages and cultures were to persist and still exist today at the beginning of the 21st century. The Revolution swept away much of the territorial organization of the Ancien Régime while retaining some features, albeit in a modified form. The influence of the 18th century philosophes can be seen in the attempt to get rid of the vestiges of the past and impose a new rationalistic order on the country, including the invention of a new calendar and method of calculating time based on decimal units21 and a new deistic religion. These changes did not survive the advent of Napoleon I but the changes in political institutions were to prove more long-lasting. At the national level, the Absolute Monarchy was abolished and replaced by the republic and then the Napoleonic empire. These three regime forms would alternate with each other until the definitive establishment of the republican form with

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the establishment of the Third Republic in 1870. At the subnational level, the changes were no less dramatic. Subsequent chapters of this book will be devoted to the different institutions that emerged out of the revolution. At this point, it will suffice simply to list some of the changes in order to grasp the historical dimension of these institutions. From the very beginning of the Revolution, the question was raised as to which form the territorial organization of France would take. There was a general feeling that the old system, represented, in the words of the Abbé Sieyès, a kind of ‘anarchy’. The Abbé, inspired by the notion of unity and indivisibility, declared that France could not be ‘une collection d’Etats’, thus denying a federal-type territorial organization. Rather ‘… Elle est un tout unique, composé de parties intégrantes’.22 Although the revolutionaries were agreed that the old system had to be replaced, there was less agreement on what should replace it. One deputy, Thouret, wishing to wipe out the past completely and adopt a system of pure mathematical proportions, proposed the creation of 80 departments (départements) each shaped as a square, the sides of which measured 18 leagues and each made up of nine cantons. Thankfully, the less extreme advocates of change, while accepting the notion of departments, proposed that these should be related to the demographic and geographical realities on the ground. This was the suggestion of Mirabeau, who was, in most respects, on the left of the revolutionary movement. In the end, a decree of 26 February 1790 abolished the 34 provinces and the provincial parlements and replaced them with 83 departments. The boundaries of these departments largely coincided with those of the old provinces. The departments were the most important and symbolic of the institutions created by the Revolution and one of the main aims of their creation was to remove the allegiance of French people to their historic provinces, even if there was some continuity in that their borders followed the old provincial boundaries. For this reason, the new departments were given the names of local rivers or mountains such as Bouches-du-Rhône or Ardèche. The department was an ambiguous entity and aimed both to bring government closer to the people and to be the means by which the centre governed the locality. In itself, therefore, it was an instrument neither of centralization nor of decentralization. The democratic aspect was expressed in the idea that its physical boundaries were drawn so as to allow any citizen to reach the principal town (the chef-lieu), where the préfecture was located, in a day’s horse-ride. In its early phase, it also had an elected council (the conseil général). The king would be represented by a procurator general (a procureur general syndic) who was, nevertheless, elected by the citizens (determined by their income). This was a form of restricted suffrage rather than the universal suffrage characteristic of contemporary liberal democracies. The vote was restricted to those who paid the ‘cens’, a tax, and was therefore known as ‘le suffrage censitaire’.

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The reformers were also aware of the large number of municipalities,23 based on the old parishes that had existed from time immemorial. Mirabeau, who had shown moderation in the creation of the departments, advocated a more radical restructuring of the municipalities which he proposed to reduce to 720. On the other hand, we must remember that the great majority of French people at this time were peasants, illiterate and fixed to their farms, whose horizons did not extend beyond the bell tower (the clocher) of their village. The peasantry had, therefore, a deep attachment to the parish/municipality and it was decided as a result not to modify the municipal boundaries in any significant way. What did change, for a short period, was the democratization of the system with elections of both municipal councils and of mayors. This, however, like the elections of the departmental councils and procurator generals would not survive the re-imposition of rule from above by Napoleon, and the experience of local democracy would have to wait until the end of the 19th century except for isolated experiences at times of revolutionary upheaval as in 1830 and 1848.24

The Napoleonic system: 19th and 20th century France The definitive centralist character of the departmental institution was given by Napoleon Bonaparte with his creation of the prefectoral system. The prefect (préfet), was the representative of the central state in the department, in effect a state governor, and who oversaw the activities of the municipalities. The mayor, too, was appointed by the central government and, at least until the local democratization laws of the end of the 19th century, was an agent of the central government. Thus, by the end of the First Empire, France had in place what would become the traditional institutions of centralization: the municipality, the department and the prefectoral system. These institutions remained the bedrock of the new state and were an element of continuity as regime succeeded regime in 19th and 20th century France, from empire to monarchy to republic to empire and back to republic. The personnel and sometimes the nomenclature of the institutions changed, but the reality remained the same: the dominant mode was centralization, and the state became dominant over civil society.

The opponents of centralization The Girondins Perhaps it could have been different. Not all those who sought change in France were extreme, revolutionary republicans like the Jacobins. We have seen that some of the reformers were in favour of a constitutional monarchy and parliamentary democracy on the model of England. Among the

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revolutionaries there were divisions, of which one of the most important was that between the Gironde and the Montagne (also known as the Jacobins). The Girondins (so-called because many of the deputies in this faction came from the Gironde area near Bordeaux), were a faction in the National Assembly led by Jacques-Pierre Brissot (1754–1793). The Girondins and the Montagnards were, in fact, ‘frères ennemis’ in the sense that both factions were drawn largely from the same social class of the liberal professions such as lawyers and notaries.25 They agreed on many things such as the establishment of the republic and the idea that the Revolution should be ‘exported’ through war to other countries, but their interpretations of these things profoundly differed and their support bases also differed. Brissot and the Girondins had the support of the wealthier classes and their notion of the republic owed much to the American model, while Robespierre, Danton and the Jacobins had the support of the lower classes (the sans-culottes) and their republic was inspired by Rousseau.26 The Girondins could live with an elected monarch presiding over the republic and did not see this as a contradiction, while the Jacobins favoured the complete abolition of the monarchy. In the end, the Jacobins were responsible for the guillotining of Louis XVI and his family, an act of which the Girondins profoundly disapproved. In the end, as we know, the revolution led to the Terror and the Jacobin dictatorship and, in the process of radicalization, the Gironde were crushed by the same forces of violence that would eventually also devour the Jacobins. Nevertheless, the Girondins left behind a deposit of ideas which have never completely disappeared from French political history. What interests us here are their differences over how the new republic should be organized territorially. While the Jacobins and, later, the Bonapartists, favoured a highly centralized state, the Girondins advocated giving a greater say to the provinces and a moderate decentralization. At the same time, they did not call into question the unity of the nation or the state. It is not certain whether they were really ‘federalists’ as their enemies claimed. We need to remember that ‘federalism’ was a term of abuse used by the Jacobins and other extreme revolutionaries to describe those who opposed the revolution. We encountered the phrase above as used by Barrère: ‘le fédéralisme parle bas-breton’, by which he meant the forces of reaction and conservatism. What seems to have motivated the Girondins was a fear of the domination of the National Assembly and of the new state by Paris, and of the Parisian popular classes who had such an influence over the Jacobins. In order to avoid this, they sought to redress the balance by giving the provinces a stronger position, that is, they favoured a moderate decentralization. It is not difficult to discern what we call ‘Girondism’ at different points of French history, not least in the current period of decentralization reforms, but this is to anticipate the main subject matter of this book.

Centralization and Decentralization in French History 39

The Reactionaries The Girondins accepted the basic tenets of the Revolution and the establishment of the republican nation-state. But there were other forces who opposed not just the Revolution but the nation-state itself and, especially the liberal representative democracy that it ushered in. These were primarily the ‘forces of reaction’, monarchists and nobility and the hierarchy of the Catholic Church as well as those populations such as in the west of France where these forces held sway. Of course, there was a certain amount of opportunism among these groups, as they had favoured centralization under the monarchy but now veered towards decentralization in opposition. But this position found articulate expression in the writings of Joseph De Maistre (1753–1821) and Louis-Gabriel de Bonald (1754–1840). These were advocates of the absolute monarchy and thus opposed to decentralization but, as Vivian Schmidt has pointed out,27 they oscillated between centralization and decentralization, depending on whether the faction was in power or opposition. This pattern continued throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. Both writers were fervent monarchists and Catholics who attacked the very principles of the Revolution and notions such as the Rights of Man and the Citizen and democracy.28 De Maistre interpreted the Revolution as a divine punishment on France for disobeying God’s will and he advocated allegiance to the papacy thus encouraging the development of French ultramontanism.29 These writers are important, not just because of their rejection of the modern nation-state and concepts such as human rights and democracy and their espousal of a religious perspective. They also left behind a traditionalist understanding of society which they saw as being corporatist and hierarchical and which was endangered by the very principles of the Revolution with its levelling tendencies. In this sense, they are the forerunners of regionalism which developed both as an ideology and political movements in France in the latter half of the 19th century and which was to become increasingly influential throughout the 20th century.30 The Regionalists By the middle of the 19th century, the institutions created by the Revolution had consolidated themselves in the eyes of the French public opinion (still a small minority of the French population since the majority were mostly illiterate peasants). But certain groups in the provinces – aristocrats, lower middle class intellectuals and priests – harboured nostalgia for the lost provinces of the old France. These groups felt excluded from the new centralized France which seemed to ride rough shod over the natural and organic communities which they imagined to be the characteristics of their regions. As elsewhere in Europe, this nostalgia found expression in literary romanticism and the search for misty or exotic places such as (Celtic) Brittany or bandit-ridden Corsica as well as further afield in Ireland and

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Scotland. Examples of such literary output are Columba (1840) by Prosper Mérimée, which tells the story of the tradition of Corsican bandits and the vendetta, while Gustave Flaubert made excursions to Brittany and Corsica. Balzac, too, presented the countryside in a romantic fashion in his novel Les Paysans (1844) in which one character exclaims on looking at the French peasantry: ‘Voilà les Peaux-Rouges de Cooper … il n’y a pas besoin d’aller en Amérique pour observer les Sauvages’.31 These were little more than literary expressions and had no implications for the territorial organization of France. But from the beginning of the 19th century, geographers did begin to take an interest in the regional dimension of the territory. In 1818, Omalius d’Hollay, in an uncanny anticipation of the preoccupations of contemporary French and European planners, divided France into seven large ‘régions naturelles’, such as the Paris basin, the region around the Rhône and the Alpes and the eastern part of the country, which correspond more or less to the planning areas of the DATAR 150 years later.32 Later geographers distinguished between 15 and 22 regions of this kind again anticipating the regional divisions of the 20th century. Vidal de la Blache found 17 regions distinguished by their geographical and economic characteristics. Fournier de Flaix proposed 19 regions, and the economist and polytechnicien Frédéric Le Play came up with 13 as the framework for his social reforms. The role played by geographers in creating a regional consciousness was to become extremely important, as we shall see with the work of Jean-François Gravier, whose Paris et le Désert français, published in 1947, was to have a profound impact on French spatial planning after the Second World War.33 Another type of regionalist movement sought to preserve the cultural and linguistic characteristics of regions such as Brittany, Corsica and French Flanders. Many who lived in these regions feared that these cultures and languages would be lost as a result of the levelling and standardizing tendencies of the French state. To some extent, these movements overlapped with the Romantic Movement mentioned above but, mostly, they were home-grown movements which emerged from within the regions themselves. Many of their adherents rejected modernity which they perceived as threatening their way of life and their traditions. They also looked askance at the emerging industrial civilization with the filth and dirt of its coalmines, factories and the insalubrious conditions of its working-classes. The Association bretonne was founded in 1843 and were dedicated to rediscovering Brittany’s Celtic roots. In Languedoc, Frédéric Mistral (1830–1914), later to win the Nobel Prize for Literature, founded in 1854 the Félibrige,34 with the help of the poet Lamartine. In 1853, the Comité flamand de France was created in protest against the decision by the government to ban the teaching of Flemish in schools.

Centralization and Decentralization in French History 41

These were literary movements involving regional intellectuals and writers. Other, more political ideologies and movements also developed. There was disquiet at excessive centralization on the part of moderate democratic thinkers such as De Tocqueville who, inspired by his studies of the United States as well as the works of Montesquieu, advocated decentralization and the separation of powers.35 Another important strand was the set of ideas developed by the writer and militant Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (1809–1865) who, as an anarchist, rejected the nation-state and developed the idea of a federalist France, based on the idea of ‘mutualism’ with the economy organized around co-operatives and political organization taking the form of abolition of the central state and the creation of a federation of ‘free municipalities’. Proudhon’s ideas had little impact in 19th century France but they were to have a much greater importance in certain French federalist and European circles in the period between the two wars.36 The first national regionalist group in France was founded by Jean Charles-Brun who, in 1900, set up the Fédération régionaliste française. Charles-Brun was an Occitan poet and scholar and did not wish his movement to be political in the sense of being attached to a political party. He declared that ‘le régionalisme n’est pas une question de régime politique’.37 Furthermore, associated with the movement were prominent political personalities from a variety of political backgrounds some of whom are not usually associated with the idea of decentralization. These included the French statesman Raymond Poincaré, who later was Prime Minister and President, and the Socialist leader Léon Blum both usually regarded as traditional Jacobins. But it was political in that it sought a reform of the territorial organization of France, not necessarily by returning to the old provinces, but by creating a level wider than the departments. According to Charles-Brun, the criteria for defining the new regions should be: historical, geographical and economic homogeneity; sufficient capacity to sustain a true regional economy; the presence of a regional urban centre; sufficient levels of population; respect for harmony among the regions.38 From the political perspective, Proudhonian left-wing federalism is something of an exception, and movements such as Charles-Brun’s were more on the conservative side of the political spectrum. Catholic political philosophers such as the priests De Lammenais (1782–1754) and the Abbé Jules Auguste Lemire (1853–1928), who advocated a liberal Catholicism and were the forerunners of Christian Democracy, were sympathetic to regionalism since it meant a recognition of the ‘corps intérmédiares’ between the individual and the state rather than the simple isolated individual of classical liberalism.39 On the extreme right, Charles Maurras (1868–1952), although a nationalist and founder of l’Action Française, was inspired by the ideas of De Maistre, De Bonald and Le Play and published, in 1898, a book entitled L’idée de la decentralisation. All of these movements, with the exception of Proudhon, held in common the idea that the French Revolution had been

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disastrous for France and that the nation-state, with the liberal democratic system associated with it, was an abomination. With the arrival of the Third Republic with its Jacobin and anti-clerical governments and the strong influence of freemasonry, French regionalism took a more political turn with the foundation (often involving the cultural regionalists) of several movements demanding greater regional autonomy. In Brittany, one of the most strongly Catholic regions of France, the Union régionaliste bretonne was founded in 1898 in reaction against the anticlerical measures of E˙mile Combes, then Minister of Public Instruction and a ferocious opponent of the Church. Combes would later become Prime Minister in 1902 and was responsible for designing the policy of laïcité, expressed in laws passed in 1901 and 1904 which forbade the teaching in schools by the religious congregations and the 1905 law separating church and state. All of these measures were deeply resented in Catholic regions such as Brittany and Flanders and showed that the old conflict between radical republicans and the Church was still a live issue.40 Education was thus a key issue for the radicals and socialists of the Third Republic, deeply marked by the Jacobin tradition and suspicious of anything that smacked of regionalism and linguistic and cultural ‘particularism’, which they saw as injurious to the Republic. At the same time, they could not ignore the fact that millions of French people, perhaps even the great majority, lived the traditional peasant lifestyle of their forebears and spoke, not Parisian French, but the local ‘patois’ (that is, regional languages) that they so despised. This led to the second great campaign of the Third Republic – the efforts to ‘turn the peasants into Frenchmen’ by forcing them to stop speaking their native languages and to begin speaking standard French.41 One of the most effective instruments in this transition was the école publique and the instituteur (primary school teacher), which punished those speaking the regional language and rewarded proficiency in French. One of the classical themes of French literature is the conflict between the instituteur, the missionary of the lay values of the Republic and often a militant atheist and freemason, and the curé, defender of localism and of the Church.42 There seems little doubt that these campaigns by the French state bore fruit in a political sense in that the great majority of Frenchmen did really identify themselves as French by the beginning of the First World War, and those who made the greatest sacrifice were the peasants, who fell in their hundreds of thousands. The small island of Corsica, for example, with about 200 000 inhabitants lost around 20 000 men during the conflict. But the campaigns were less successful from the cultural and linguistic point of view, and one of the greatest shocks of the First World War was the realization that the majority of the ordinary soldiers of the French Army could not understand each other nor could they understand their officers who spoke standard French. The war had a number of consequences for the French regions. First, it cemented the loyalty of the majority of the regional

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populations to the French state – the ‘blood’ sacrifice was for the patrie. Secondly, it made the politicians governing the state realize that the cultural assimilation of these populations was still incomplete and needed to be completed. But, thirdly, it radicalized the already existing regionalist movements, since they became even more conscious of the disadvantages of their regions and they reacted even more strongly against the centralizing and culturally standardizing policies of the state. This led to a renewed outburst of regionalism between the two world wars, which became increasingly radical politically and began to espouse both federalism.43 (within France and more widely as a form of European integration) and nationalism and independence (the idea that Brittany, Corsica, Flanders, etc. were small ‘nations’ entitled to their own mini nation-states). With a few exceptions, these movements were on the right and even the extreme right of the political spectrum and, when France was occupied during the Second World War (by Germans in continental France, and by Italians in Corsica), many regionalists and nationalists rallied either to Maréchal Pétain or to the Nazis and Fascists, since that is where their political sympathies lay. Although the last group of extreme right collaborators was a small minority of the entire regionalist movement, their actions did serve to discredit political regionalism after the Second World War, and this would emerge once again as a political movement only in the 1960s. But that is a story that we will tell in a further chapter devoted to the contemporary region.

Conclusions This historical survey of the development of territorial organization in France makes clear that the dominant tendency has been towards centralization rather than decentralization, uniformity and standardization rather than the recognition of diversity and of the omnipresence of the central state rather than the importance of subnational entities. It also shows that the period of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Empire was the crucial turning point in the creation of the modern French state and that the key institutions of territorial government were created then. The Revolution and Empire did consolidate the centralized state that had been sought by the monarchy but they carried this to its logical conclusion and began to reduce the great internal political and administrative diversity of France. The most dramatic change that resulted from the Revolution was the abolition of the historic provinces and the creation of the departments. These, in themselves, were instruments neither of centralization nor of decentralization but they became the former when Napoleon I created the prefectoral system – one prefect per department – as a way of exercising central control over the locality. The municipality existed before the Revolution and its numbers were not reduced but it too,

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mainly through the institution of the mayor, became an element of centralization, although it also remained a strong element of local identity and, eventually, of democracy. Other forms of territorial organization, and in particular the region, became quite marginal to the great triad of nation-department-municipality but the aspirations towards affirming it did not disappear. For the most part, regionalist movements were singularly unsuccessful in changing the post-revolutionary territorial settlement at least until the period after the Second World War. But these political and administrative developments only slowly affected French society where the rhythms of change have been much slower and at this level much diversity remained. To this we now turn.

2 The ‘Trente Glorieuses’ (1945–1975) and their Aftermath

France developed a set of political institutions at both national and subnational levels to express the idea of the one and indivisible nation-state. The dominant state ideology and tradition between the French Revolution at the end of the 18th century and the period following the Second World War emphasized centralization, standardization and uniformity.1 This has been true, with some nuances, until 1982, whatever the regime in place: restored monarchy (1814–1818), Second Republic (1848–1852), Second Empire (1852–1870), Third Republic (1870–1940), Vichy Regime (1940–1945), Fourth Republic (1946–1958), and the current Fifth Republic (1958–). The obsessive insistence on political and administrative centralization on the part of French political leaders, particularly those in the radical, republican and socialist traditions, however, betrays a deep-seated unease within the political class that is related to the continuing diversity of French society. Eugen Weber’s classic work Peasants into Frenchmen shows how, at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries, the task of creating a culturally and sociologically homogeneous French people was still far from accomplished despite the adherence of the majority of these same French people to the institutions of the Republic. Even today, France is still characterized by its great cultural, economic, social and cultural diversity. To a large extent, the centralizing institutions that have been in place for almost 200 years were an attempt to overcome this. The more extreme Jacobins such as Émile Combes were terrified that the great diversity, associated with provincial reactionary forces such as the Church and the nobility, would rise up and destroy the gains of the Revolution and the secular republic (la République laïque). But, underneath the institutions, French society continued to exist as it had done for centuries, since the bulk of its population were peasants living the same lives as their forebears. Those opposed to this centralization remained politically marginal elites and could be dismissed as nostalgic dreamers and utopians – indeed many were poets and provincial intellectuals. We have already seen, however, that geographers, obviously acutely aware of physical space, did think of France 45

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in terms of its great natural physical, climatic and economic regional diversity. Nevertheless, although there were sporadic attempts to introduce regional planning throughout the 20th century, the emphasis was on central control of planning policy and there was little attempt at political regionalization or decentralization. Despite this, however, it would be a mistake to think that France was completely dominated by Paris and that provincial and local life was completely stagnant. From the 1960s and 1970s, historians such as Fernand Braudel, geographers such as J.- F. Gravier, sociologists and political scientists such as Michel Crozier, Jean-Claude Thoenig and Jean-Pierre Worms, anthropologists like Emmanuel Todd and Hervé Le Bras began to analyse central-local relations, using the methods of the social sciences.2 These scholars began to uncover a much more complex set of realities than one might have expected from straightforward theories of domination of the periphery by the French centre in Paris.

One France or many? Braudel, in one of his last books, L’identité de la France, published in 1986, states simply: ‘La France se nomme diversité’ and even ‘La France est diversité’, despite all the attempts to make it uniform and centralized.3 Traditionally, it was recognized that there existed at least two Frances: the north and the south. Braudel, however, was aware of a far more internally diverse France and, in fact, claimed that France is the most diverse of all European nations. This is true both in terms of its geography – France contains several different mountain ranges (the Alpes, the Pyrénées, the Massif Central, the Vosges), varying climates, ranging from the wet, wind-swept coasts of the west, the foggy regions of the north to the serene sunlight of Provence. It is traversed by great rivers such as the Rhône, the Rhine and the Seine which have formed natural frontiers (for example, between Germany and France but also between northern and southern France) as well as providing transport corridors, probably for millennia. These physical and topographical features underlie a great diversity in flora and fauna ranging from the apple orchards of Normandy to the vineyards of the Beaujolais and Bordeaux and the olive-growing regions of the Mediterranean. It has also produced varying systems of law, customs, architecture, cuisine and linguistic culture. But, according to Braudel, the diversity of France goes even further than this and historic provinces such as Brittany, Provence or Alsace, can be further analysed as containing different ‘Brittanies’, ‘Provences’ or ‘Alsaces’.4 Besides these features related to physical geography, there is also societal diversity which has shown a remarkable continuity over hundreds of years. One of the most interesting and provocative analyses has been made by cultural anthropologists Hervé Le Bras and Emmanuel Todd, in several joint and single-authored works. In their Invention de la France,5 they claim

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to have discovered the societal foundations of this diversity in the nature of family structures. They distinguish two basic forms of family. The famille nucléaire (literally ‘the nuclear family’ but not in the same sense that this term is used in Anglophone sociology6) consists of a father, mother and non-married children. When children marry, they leave the family of origin to form a new ‘nuclear family’. The second form of family, the famille souche (literally, the ‘family with roots’, that is. going back several generations) includes at least some married children, all living under the same roof. The famille souche can be further sub-divided into two types. The ‘authoritarian’ family is one which is controlled by the paterfamilias. This type of family often only has one child who is the heir to the family fortune, who marries late and remains under the control of the father. Other children remain celibate or leave the family if they want to make their fortune. The second is the ‘patriarchal’ or ‘communitarian’ family, composed of several generations grouped around an ‘elder’ among which may be several married children. These family types are found in other European societies but one type tends to predominate in particular countries. Thus, society in England is almost exclusively made up of nuclear families, the communitarian family is found in Italy, while in Germany it is the authoritarian family which predominates. What marks France out, according to these authors, is that it contains all three types, but one type predominates in particular geographical regions: the nuclear family in the area around Paris, the authoritarian family in the Catholic regions such as Brittany and Alsace, and the communitarian family in the Midi. In La Nouvelle France, Todd attempts to draw the links between these family structures and different forms of economic production, social organization, religious beliefs and political affiliation and behaviour, including election results.7 Although Todd’s analysis is somewhat deterministic and his explanations of religion, especially Catholicism, are rather facile,8 his analysis does bring out an important feature of French diversity: the continuities that have existed over long periods of time, at least right up to the 1960s. What are the implications of this diversity for the formation of the French state? According to Le Bras and Todd, ‘la France ne devrait pas exister – France ought not to exist’ so great is the diversity. The fact that it does exist means that it has been necessary to ‘invent’ it as the title of their book states. Braudel, confirms this from the point of view of the historian and adds: ‘en fait, elle a dû surmonter obstacles, division, entraîner avec elle une masse d’histoires stagnantes, contradictoires, pesantes, lourdes comme la terre’.9 The usual way of presenting this history (which to some extent we have followed in the previous chapter) is to place the ‘provinces’ on the one side and ‘Paris’ on the other and to see the latter as the driving force of the effort to overcome and dominate the centrifugal tendencies of French history and society. But it would be wrong to see the relationship between

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the two as an entirely one-way affair – Paris dominating the provinces. On the contrary, as Debbasch and Pontier have pointed out in La société française, Paris and the provinces needed each other, even if Paris was the dominant partner and set the pace in fashion, ideas, music, and so on.10 At the same time, la France profonde was as important an element of French identity as the Parisian pace-setters. What is remarkable is that, despite the continual changes of regime in France since the French Revolution began in 1789, these deeply entrenched features continued right up to the 1960s. There was a remarkable stability in the relationships among the different ‘Frances’ and in the social classes of bourgeoisie, middle classes, working class and peasantry that made up the French nation. Nevertheless, despite these continuities, the first half of the 20th century saw France, between the two World Wars, suffer a series of crises which deeply weakened its economic and social bases. During the First World War, the biggest loss was in human capital, with millions either killed or injured during the conflict which, as we saw in the previous chapter, most affected rural France. This led to a demographic decline in the 1920s and 1930s. In these decades, the world-wide economic crisis affected France later than other countries, it is true, but, nevertheless, with the serious political and trade union confrontations of these years further weakened an economic infrastructure that was already lagging behind the advanced capitalist countries such as the US and Germany. The protectionist policies and stagnation of those years further exacerbated the problem of this weakness.11 The defeat by Germany in 1940, and the subsequent occupation of part of the country and the setting up of the puppet Vichy regime of Maréchal Pétain deepened the sense of humiliation of the majority of French people. It was General De Gaulle who saved French honour with his refusal to submit to defeat and his establishment of Free France in exile.

France after the Second World War: Reconstruction During the Second World War, France lost fewer people than in the First, but its economy and society were more profoundly damaged both in the geographical spread of the destruction as well as the sectors touched. Still, the human casualties were considerable: 617 000 dead and 437 000 wounded, making more than one million people either killed or incapacitated. But the material damage was also immense: 80 per cent of the ports were destroyed or out of use; 2 500 bridges destroyed; 452 trains; the majority of cargo ships, fishing vessels and rail freight; almost two million buildings destroyed or damaged; 200 000 farms destroyed or damaged; 170 000 industrial units destroyed or damaged.12 It was clear to the French leadership of the time that the country could not lift itself up by its own forces and would have to turn to outside powers for help. In fact, France found itself squeezed between two major powers at the time: the United States

The ‘Trente Glorieuses’ (1945–1975) and their Aftermath 49

and the Soviet Union. The Communist Party, who with the Gaullists had played important roles in the French resistance were favourable to rapprochement with the Soviet Union, while the Gaullists were hostile to both the Soviet Union and the USA. Both groups were present in the first postwar coalition governments led by General De Gaulle himself but both were ousted by a coalition of political forces which included the non-Gaullist right, the moderate left and the Christian Democrats. They succeeded De Gaulle and formed the subsequent governments of the Fourth Republic, marginalizing both the Gaullists and the Communists, and they chose to ally with the United States and the Atlanticist group. This was a crucial decision as it led to two important developments, both of which were related to each other. First, France became eligible for Marshall Aid which, between 1945 and 1947, made available 12 billion dollars for the reconstruction of Europe. France received approximately two billion dollars of this aid. Marshall Aid was connected to another post-war development: European integration. The US, by now engaged in the Cold War with the Soviet Union, favoured the creation of regional economic blocs, especially in Western Europe, as a way of blocking Soviet expansionism. In fact, the idea of a united and even federal Europe had been debated in resistance circles and, in particular, among Catholic political movements who laid the basis for Christian Democracy in France and elsewhere even before the war ended. It was not a surprise then when Christian Democrats of the Mouvement Républicain Populaire (MRP) such as Robert Schuman (1886–1963) and moderate Socialists (Union démocratique et socialiste de la Résistance) such as René Pleven (the former from Alsace and the latter a Breton), espoused the notion of a federal Europe. Immediately after the War, these politicians, with their Christian Democratic colleagues in Germany (Adenauer), Italy (De Gasperi), but also, in Belgium, with the Socialist and Freemason Paul-Henri Spaak, laid the foundations for the future European Community. In this they were helped by Jean Monnet (1888–1979), a French technocrat who nevertheless believed in a federal Europe. In 1951, Schuman, then French Foreign Minister, announced the establishment of the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC), the first and most successful of the new European institutions. In 1950, René Pleven, as French Minister of Defence, drew up a plan to create a European defence force. Schuman, Pleven and Monnet as European federalists shared with groups such as the Union of European Federalists (UEF) a deep-seated distrust of the traditional nation-state and nationalism, which they held responsible for the three major wars France had fought with Germany since the 19th century (1870, 1914–1918, 1939–1945).13 Their plan was to minimize the importance of the nation-state by locking it into a ‘neofunctionalist’ arrangement with Germany and other states that had been at war, such as the Benelux countries and Italy. At the same time, they differed from the UEF, who wished to abolish outright the nation-state and produce a European federation with a ‘big bang’, with the promulgation of

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a European Constitution. Schuman and Monnet, on the contrary, realized that this was not realistic and set out, instead, to reduce the importance of the nation-state by a strategy that was both incremental and pragmatic. They were undoubtedly wise in this approach, as was illustrated by the defeat of René Pleven’s European Defence Community in the French National Assembly which, despite the support of the coalition government at the time, was defeated in 1954 by a combination of Gaullists and Communists and others who feared that French national sovereignty would be seriously threatened if the measure were passed. The defeat of the EDC forced the Europeanists to lower their ambitions and they decided to concentrate on the economic rather than the political dimension of integration. This led to the acceptance of the European Economic Community (EEC) set up in 1957 by the Treaty of Rome. This was undoubtedly a defeat for European federalism and a victory for those, in France and elsewhere, who remained attached to the principle of national sovereignty. It could even be argued with Alan Milward that, in the 1950s and 1960s, Europe was an important instrument in ‘rescuing’ the nation-state.14 This was mainly because it became the instrument by which the member states rebuilt their economies and societies with the help of Marshall Aid. But this was also the period when the post-war economic boom took off and it was this, alongside the burgeoning of the welfare state, that consolidated the post-war recovery of the nation-state. This reaffirmation of French national sovereignty was further strengthened by the return to power of General De Gaulle in 1958 and the establishment of the Fifth Republic. Nevertheless, although the French nation-state was ‘rescued’ and even developed, European integration would have an important impact on the country’s territorial politics, although this would happen at a much later period toward the middle of the 1980s. But it is worth noting here that Schuman and the other founding fathers of Europe were also committed regionalists and, indeed, linked regionalism to European federalism.15 Pleven, for example, was one of the founders of the most important postwar regionalist movement, the Breton Comité d’Etudes et de Liaison des Intérêts Bretons (CELIB). The CELIB, however, was more a reaction to developments within France than to any opportunities offered by European integration. In France new approaches were being developed to both economic development and social policy that would have profound consequences for territorial politics and administration. When General De Gaulle became Prime Minister in 1945, he established the Commissariat général du Plan with Jean Monnet as its first director. Monnet used the Commissariat to devise a system of national planning inspired by, but also different from, the Soviet plans. The main difference was that the French model was based on ‘indicative’ planning, laying out goals to be achieved rather than the details necessary to achieve them characteristic of Sovietstyle directive planning. The Plan, with the embryonic European Community, became an essential instrument of French economic recovery

The ‘Trente Glorieuses’ (1945–1975) and their Aftermath 51

after the war. By the mid-1950s, however, it had become clear to those living in France’s lagging regions such as Brittany and Corsica that the Plan was primarily national and did not sufficiently take into account regional disparities. The Bretons, under the leadership of the above-mentioned CELIB, developed a Regional Action Plan (Plan d’Action Régionale) which took into account the specific situation of Brittany, within the framework of the national plan and this approach was adopted by other French regions.16 Another important aspect in the development of post-war France was the setting up of the Welfare State (called in French l’État providence, l’État providentiel or l’État de bien-être), which began a little later than it did in the Scandinavian countries, Germany or in the United Kingdom but which, nevertheless, developed into a very powerful set of social policy instruments.17 The French version of the Welfare State differed from the Scandinavian and British versions in that it was financed by a social insurance principle rather than through general taxation.18 But all Welfare States shared a number of common features. It could be seen as a national response to the problems of unemployment, poverty and economic stagnation that many analysts of this period held responsible for the rise of Nazism, Fascism and Communism and, therefore, of the war itself. The Welfare State was designed to prevent market failure and to pick up the pieces when this occurred. But it also had a more overtly political aspect in that, by providing generous welfare services it locked citizens more firmly into the national polity. In other words, it could be seen as a consequence and extension of national citizenship as T. H. Marshall argued as early as 1950.19 Welfare States, whatever the actual mechanisms they use in the collection and redistribution of resources, and whether they were federal, unitary of decentralized states, were similar in the kinds of institutional processes they encouraged and in particular in the effects of this on territorial organization. In effect, they encouraged a high degree of centralization in order better to redistribute resources from the better-off to the less well-off, whether these were individuals or territories.20 Central-local relations in unitary states or central-regional relations in federal states were also affected by this logic of centralized control. Using the approach known as ‘principal-agent’ theory, we can say that local authorities became the ‘agents’ of the central state – the ‘principal’ – in the delivery of national social welfare programmes. As a result, they lost a good deal of whatever autonomy and discretion they might have possessed over these policy areas. Furthermore, since one of the underlying principles of welfarism was ‘equity’, this implied a standardized level of services across the entire territory of the state. Thus, the Welfare State meant a highly symmetrical system. In Sweden, for example, where there was a highly developed example of this idea – the famous ‘Swedish model’ – people living in Umeå, which is near Lapland, would have the same level of public services –

52 Subnational Government

health, education, child-care, etc. – as those living in Stockholm. These ideas were easily applied to the French state traditions of Colbertism (state intervention and regulation of the economy), of the unity and indivisibility of the state (equity), and the refusal of ‘corporatism’ and institutional diversity (symmetry). It also boosted the department which was the level of local government primarily responsible for social security payments.

Les Trentes Glorieuses (1945–1975) These efforts to bring about post-war reconstruction were highly successful from an economic point of view. Between 1945 and 1975, a period which has been dubbed Les Trente Glorieuses (the ‘Golden Age’), France experienced an extraordinary economic boom. The French technocrats and politicians who led this recovery had an exalted concept of the ‘State’ (l’État – always written in French with a capital ‘É’), which, through a series of nationalizations, took under its control several major enterprises such as utilities (CDF – Charbonnages de France or French Coal; EDF – Électricité de France or French Electricity; GDF – Gaz de France or French Gas), airlines (Air France), banks (Banque de France) and many other private companies like the Renault car factory (Régie Nationale des Usines Renault). Similar nationalizations were taking place in other countries such as the United Kingdom at this time. This tied in well with the then dominant Keynesian notion of state intervention in the economy to manipulate the factors of production and of supply and demand. But there was a peculiar Gallic twist to this French Keynesianism in that it was driven by graduates of the Grandes Écoles such as the Polytechnique, and the École Nationale d’Administration (ENA), which produced the elite administrators and planners of the French state. These elites were imbued with the notion of the unity and indivisibility of the Republic, were highly conscious of their position as the guardians of the state and were imbued with the notion of what De Gaulle had called ‘la grandeur de la France’ (the ‘greatness of France’). It is somewhat ironic, then, that it was during this period that France changed its status as a world power, leaving the first rank of powers and joining those of the middle-rank. This was partly a consequence of defeat and occupation during the Second World War but it was mainly a result of France shedding its overseas Empire, either through the voluntary relinquishing of colonial states as in sub-Saharan Africa or through being forced to give them up in colonial wars as in South-East Asia and North Africa. Although France maintained links with her former colonies through the Communauté française, she turned towards Europe in the hope of maintaining some kind of dominant role at least in European politics. When De Gaulle returned to power in 1958 he tried to promote France’s position as a world power by situating her between the two superpowers of the USA and the USSR. All of these developments in international relations can be seen

The ‘Trente Glorieuses’ (1945–1975) and their Aftermath 53

as ways by which the French state reconstructed itself after the debacle of the war. We shall return at a later point in this chapter to the political aspects of this period and how they affected territorial governance. But, for the moment, we shall concentrate on the social and economic changes that occurred. Socio-economic changes in France since 1945 During the Trente Glorieuses, French society and economy went through a dramatic transformation which Henri Mendras has described in his book La Seconde Révolution Française.21 There was a territorial dimension to this phase of economic development. At first, it was Paris and a small number of other cities such as Lyon and Lille, which benefited most from the economic recovery. The development of the cities, however, meant drawing cheap labour from the countryside, where life was much harsher and where many peasants lived without basic amenities such as electricity and even running water. Farming, especially in mountain regions such as the Auvergne (Massif Central) or Ardèche, was characterized by low levels of technology and difficult terrain. It is not surprising, therefore, that in the 1950s and 1960s, France experienced a rural exodus, which drained the countryside. Although this was related to economic transformation within France, it was also exacerbated by developments at the European level. One of the first policies devised by the European Economic Community (EEC), was the Common Agricultural Policy – CAP, which came into existence in 1958, under the first Commissioner for Agricultural Affairs, Sicco Mansholt. The CAP has been described as a ‘welfare state for farmers’ and was supported by the French because of their own large agricultural sector. In practice, however, it mostly benefited the large farmers in the great wheat-growing plains of the north of France and provided little assistance to the small family farmers who comprised the bulk of France’s agricultural population. By the 1960s, the CAP had run into difficulties and, in 1968, Mansholt devised what became known as the Mansholt Plan. In essence, this was designed to create an intensive, industrialized type of farming and to reduce the numbers of smallholdings as these were deemed to be inefficient. It is not difficult to recognize in this approach the application of the methods of Fordist industrial production to agriculture, an approach which would be bitterly criticized at a later stage as a destruction of the countryside and the rural way of life. The Plan recommended an accelerated exodus from the land; the establishment of large production units, seven or eight times bigger than the 1960s average; the setting aside of five million hectares of land so as not to exacerbate overproduction; the freezing of, or reduction in, prices in order to adjust production to consumption and to exports; and the culling of 3.5 million cows over eight years to avoid the re-emergence of milk surpluses. Although the French agricultural industry opposed it, the plan went ahead and thus accelerated the rural exodus

54 Subnational Government

(See Tables 2.1 and 2.2). These trends continued until, by 2001, only 4.1 per cent of the French workforce were employed in agriculture.22 Some traditional regions of France did manage to adapt to this ‘modern’ form of agricultural production. Brittany, for example, was at the forefront of rural transformation and modernization, thanks to the efforts of Catholic farming organizations such as the Jeunesse Agricole Chrétienne – JAC (Young Christian Farmers). The Bretons imported intensive farming methods from Denmark and the Netherlands and produced what became known as the ‘miracle Breton’. To some extent, this was a result of their ability to combine certain traditional features of Breton society, such as its deeply ingrained Catholicism and ‘sociability’, with a modern technocratic approach to development. In Languedoc-Roussillon, too, the emphasis on mass, industrialized agricultural production benefited the wine-growers of the Midi, who produced low-quality, but cheap, wine. By the 1990s, of course, these methods of agricultural production ran into trouble as the consuming public became both more environmentally conscious and more discriminating in their choice of cuisine.23 Table 2.1

Urban, rural and agricultural populations Total population (millions)

1906 1921 1931 1936 1946 1954 1962 1968 1975

Urban population (municipalities of 2000+) (%)

39.25 39.21 41.83 41.90 40.50 42.78 46.52 49.66 52.65

Rural population (%)

42 46 51 52 53 56 63 70 73

58 54 49 48 47 44 37 30 27

Agricultural population (%)

40 (15.85m) 35 (13.8m) 27 (11.5m) 25 (10.58m) 25 (10.24m) 23 (9.65m) 18 (8.36m) 15 (7.25m) 11 (5.89m)

Source: Vaughan, M. et al. (1980) Social Change in France (Oxford: Martin Robertson, 1980), quoting INSEE, Les agriculteurs, I (Paris: 1977).

Table 2.2 Relative weighting of the three sectors as a percentage of the working population in 1975 and 1982

Agriculture Industry Services

1975

1982

Evolution 1975–1982

10.1% 38.6% 51.4%

8.2% 34.2% 57.6%

–1.9% –4.4% +6.2%

Source: E. Todd (1988) La Nouvelle France (Paris: Seuil, 1988).

The ‘Trente Glorieuses’ (1945–1975) and their Aftermath 55

Up to the early 1960s, the emphasis was on rebuilding the national economy and Paris was the driving force behind this. The headquarters of most firms were located in the capital which is where the political, administrative and cultural power of the country lay. It was mainly Paris which benefited from the rural exodus described above and its population continued to increase until the mid-1970s (see Table 2.3). This was in line with the policies of the French presidents of the period, De Gaulle (1962–1969) and Pompidou (1969–1974). This is not to say that there were no critics of the system particularly in the provinces. We have already noted the complaints of the Breton CELIB and this was echoed in other French regions, especially Corsica.24 Geographers too, already noted in the previous chapter for their regionalist tendencies, raised their voices. The most notable of these was Jean-François Gravier, whose book Paris et le desert français, first published in 1947, was to have a profound impact on thinking about spatial planning. By the early 1970s, this had come around to recognizing the necessity of reducing the concentration of industry and services in Paris, which was now causing serious problems of pollution, housing shortages and transport congestion in the capital itself, as well as depriving the provinces of much needed economic development. This led to the policy of industrial decentralization, which involved encouraging industries to set up plants in provincial cities such as Lyon, Rennes or Lille.25 Economic thinking during this period was dominated by the ‘growth pole’ theory. This postulated that the encouragement of ‘growth poles’, that is dynamic cities and towns, would create positive spillover effects in their surrounding regions, thus leading to overall regional economic development. Although it is doubtful whether this approach led to significant, harmonious economic development in France as a whole, it did have the effect of bringing the medium-sized provincial towns into the Table 2.3 Population movements across territories: average yearly entries and departures for given periods 1962–1968 Île-de-France Bassin parisien Nord-Pasde-Calais Est Ouest Sud-Ouest Centre-Est Méditerranée Total Métropole

1968–1975 1975–1982

1982–1990

1990–1999

+63,000 +21,000 –8,000

+15,000 +16,000 –17,000

–40,000 +4,000 –21,000

–6,000 –2,000 –21,000

–55,000 –10,000 –16,000

–3,000 –7,000 +32,000 +41,000 +90,000 +229,000

–1,000 +10,000 +17,000 +21,000 +56,000 +118,000

–15,000 +17,000 +25,000 +10,000 +58,000 +37,000

–17,000 +8,000 +29,000 +14,000 +51,000 +55,000

–5,000 +20,000 +27,000 +6,000 +39,000 +6,000

Source: J. Guigou, et al. (2001) Aménagement du territoire (Paris: La Documentation Française, 2001) quoting Recensements de la population, INSEE.

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national picture and, to some extent at least, counter-balancing the domination of Paris. From the mid-1970s onwards, Île-de-France, the region around Paris, began to lose population to other French regions, notably those in the west and the south, who were net gainers (see Table 2.3). Of course, some of these changes were not necessarily a result of government industrial policy but may also be due to factors such as the advantages of living in a pleasant climate such as is found in the Midi in towns such as Montpellier, as compared to the stresses of living in a large conurbation such as Paris with all its problems of noise, pollution and crime. The other important aspect of French socio-economic development which would have an important impact on territorial government and administration was immigration from other countries. Table 2.4 shows that the great bulk of this immigration took place between the mid-1940s and the mid-1970s, that is, more or less during the entire period of the Trente Glorieuses. This corresponds to the period of economic expansion when there was a great demand for cheap labour to fill the factories and workshops, with foreign labourers joining the ranks of those who had left the French countryside. The tables show that those who came to settle permanently were roughly equal in numbers to those who arrived for seasonal work. And many of the permanent workers also brought their families with them. From the mid-1970s onwards, the absolute numbers of foreign immigrants declined considerably. Immigration Table 2.4

Immigration in France 1946–87 (tables in thousands) 1946–55

1956–67

1968–73

1974–80

1981–87

Permanent workers

325.2 (32.5)# (48.94)*

1205.9 (109.6) (44.06)

801.3 (133.6) (39.16)

192.9 (27.6) (13.77)

195.1 (27.9) (17.42)

Seasonal workers

247.6 (24.8) (37.26)

1126.9 (102.4) (41.17)

821.9 (137.0) (40.16)

857.3 (122.5) (61.18)

664.2 (94.9) (59.30)

Family members

91.7 (9.2) (13.8)

404.2 (36.7) (14.77)

423.2 (70.5) (20.68)

351.0 (50.1) (25.05)

260.6 (37.2) (23.27)

Total

664.4 (66.4) (100)

2737.1 (248.8) (100)

2046.5 (341.1) (100)

1401.2 (200.2) (100)

1120 (160) (100)

Numbers in brackets are # the average annual rate of immigration and * the percentage of total immigration for each type of immigration for a given period. Source: Hollifield, J. and Ross, G. (1990) Searching for the new France (New York, London: Routledge, 1991) quoting Office des Migrations Internationales (OMI).

The ‘Trente Glorieuses’ (1945–1975) and their Aftermath 57

But, in order to understand the longer-term consequences of these patterns of immigration and the present-day problems of the banlieue (the deprived suburbs of French cities), it is necessary to analyse further the national origins of the immigrants (Table 2.5). In the decade immediately following the war, the majority were from other European countries – Italy, Spain and Portugal. From the mid-1950s onwards, it is North Africans – Moroccans, Tunisians and Algerians – and Turks who predominate. There is also a small amount of immigration from Yugoslavia during this period. The importance of these different categories of immigrants is that the former group – the Europeans – shared the same type of religion (Catholicism) and culture (Latin and western) as the French and were therefore more easily able to assimilate into French society than the second group whose religion (Islam) and culture (Arabic or Turkish) were further removed. As a result of both rejection by the native French as well as a desire to retain their own traditions, the North Africans and Turks tended to live apart. Eventually they and their descendants would mostly live in ethnic ghettos outside the Table 2.5

Immigration of workers and family members by nationality*

Nationality

1946–55

1956–67

1968–73

1974–81

1982–87

Italians

27,838 66.8

36,813 27.4

9,359 4.6

4,529 5.1

1,367 2.5

Spaniards

1,490 3.6

49,785 37.1

24,240 11.9

2,714 3.1

804 1.5

Portuguese

424 1.0

26,359 19.6

91,413 44.8

17,082 19.3

4,991 9.3

Moroccans

600 1.4

7,994 6

27,383 13.4

19,576 22.1

12,288 22.8

Tunisians

– 1.8

2,418 7.8

15,852 6.7

5,912 9.9

5,314

Turks

– 0.2

279 4.2

8,505 11.5

10,157 10.3

5,528

Yugoslavs

29 0.1

3,125 2.3

11,208 5.5

1,820 2.1

693 1.3

Others

11,302 27.1

7,407 5.5

16,131 7.9

26,624 30.1

22,841 42.4

Total

41,683 100

134,179 100

204,090 100

88,414 100

53,825 100

*The tables show annual averages. The second row of numbers in italics represents the percentage of total immigration for each nationality for a given period. Source: Hollifield, J. and Ross, G. (1990) Searching for the new France (New York, London: Routledge, 1991) quoting Office des Migrations Internationales.

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mainstream of French society. This would have important consequences for French urban policy as we shall see in a later chapter of this book. Cultural and value changes: the legacy of May ’68 One important feature of the 1960s was the radical change in social and cultural mores which occurred at this time. There was something of a contradiction here. On the one hand, the Welfare State was built on the model of the traditional family, with a male bread-winner, working outside the home, and a female home-maker, caring for the home and the children. But influential left-wing intellectual elites such as Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir were beginning to challenge this kind of ‘bourgeois’ society, which they claimed oppressed the working-classes as well as women and other minorities by holding them in thrall to the state and to bourgeois class structures and the traditional patriarchal family. These ideas were part of wider trends in the western world where both Marxism and left-wing interpretations of Freud’s psychoanalytic theories were popular among the still rather small intellectual groups of the ‘new’ left. Although traditional Marxist socialism had been quite puritanical in sexual matters, the new left’s approach combined ‘class struggle’, sexual ‘liberation’ and a hatred of ‘bourgeois’ society. These trends burst out into the open in the ‘events’ of May ’68 when France, and especially Paris, experienced a kind of revolution which brought it to its knees.26 President Charles De Gaulle successfully weathered the crisis and the political right managed to reassert itself in subsequent elections but the ‘events’ signalled a profound change in mentality, culture and values that were to affect France in the decades to come. Territorial reforms during the Trente Glorieuses The Trente Glorieuses, then, were a period of extraordinary social and economic changes and, in some respects, the French unitary state was well adapted to cope with and to develop these changes. On the other hand, the system of territorial political and administrative organization – the 100 departments and the 36 000 municipalities – was rather less well adapted. During this same period, countries such as the UK, the Scandinavian states and Germany were quite radically reforming their institutions of territorial governance to adapt better to the changing circumstances of the post-war boom. This mostly took the form of reducing the number of local governments and giving the new authorities wider functions, all within the context of the Welfare State. In France, this proved to be extremely difficult during this period but some attempts were made to do so, particularly with regard to regionalization. We have noted above that there was already, in the 1950s, an attempt, however weak, to ‘regionalize’ the National Plan through the development of the Plan d’Action Régionale. But, after the arrival of De Gaulle to power

The ‘Trente Glorieuses’ (1945–1975) and their Aftermath 59

in 1958, this was put on the back-burner while the General dealt with the Algerian crisis, the collapse of the Fourth Republic and the establishment of the Fifth. During the early part of his presidency, De Gaulle, who had an almost mystical notion of the French nation-state, emphasized the notion of ‘la grandeur de la France’ (the ‘greatness of France’) and showed little interest in questions such as regional and local government. But, despite this, he ended his political career on a rather surprising note. Believing that the process of centralization necessary for building up the French nationstate had now come to an end, he declared in a speech in Lyon in March 1968 (that is, before the ‘events’ which would burst out in May of that year): ‘L’effort multiséculaire de centralisation qui fut longtemps nécessaire à la France pour réaliser et maintenir son unité, malgré les divergences des provinces qui lui étaient successivement rattachées, ne s’impose plus désormais. Au contraire, ce sont les activités régionales qui apparaissent comme les ressorts de sa puissance économique de demain’.27 He therefore proposed a form of regionalization which would have transformed the territorial governance structures of France. Since De Gaulle’s speech took place before May ’68, it is unlikely that he would have been influenced by the then current fads for autogestion or that this was a sop to its supporters. It seems that he was genuinely convinced that the time for regionalism had at last arrived, and he proposed a referendum on the topic. His mistake was to link this with a reform of the Senate, which (as we shall see in a later chapter) was the political body which represented the interests of the departments and municipalities. The majority of senators were deeply opposed to regionalization as they feared this would threaten their hegemony at the local level. But the referendum held on 27 April 1969 was probably less about territorial reform and more a test of De Gaulle’s own authority as president of France. The complications of combining a referendum on regionalization with the constitutional changes to the Senate ensured its defeat, and De Gaulle retreated once more to his home in Colombey-les-Deux-Eglises, where he died in 1970. The referendum defeat did not mean the end of French regionalization. De Gaulle’s successor Georges Pompidou took up the issue but implemented it in a more pragmatic and less confrontational way. In July 1972, administrative regions were set up with the legal status of établissements publics, that is, as somewhat less than the older established departments and municipalities, which are collectivités territoriales.28 Unlike the municipalities, which had a general competence to deal with local affairs within their boundaries, the new regions were given three clearly defined areas of activity: economic development, training and infrastructure. This would remain the case until the 1982 decentralization reforms which upgraded their legal status to equal that of the departments and municipalities and gave them new political structures, although they did not begin to function as political regions until 1986. The region will be

60 Subnational Government

examined more fully in a later chapter. It suffices at this point to note that their status did not change much under the presidency of Pompidou’s successor, Valéry Giscard d’Estaing. During the entire period of the Fourth Republic and the early part of the Fifth, with the exception of the slow and cautious emergence of the regions, territorial governance saw little change. What did change were the culture and values of French society. The election in 1974 of President Valéry Giscard d’Estaing ushered in significant social changes such as the liberalization of the laws on abortion and divorce. Two changes in particular may be noted at this point. The first was the questioning of traditional values and institutions such as the traditional family and sexual norms as well as the school, the university and the political system in general.29 For certain radical thinkers of the older generation and political movements of the younger generation,30 every social phenomenon that was traditional had to be questioned and, if necessary, replaced by something new. This was one of the factors among others which led to what the sociologist Alain Touraine called ‘new social movements’, such as feminism, environmentalism and regionalism.31 These new movements, related to changes in economic modes of production and the advent of a ‘post-industrial’ society, were allegedly replacing older forms of social organization such as political parties and trade unions. Related to this was the affirmation of the notion of autogestion, or autonomy at different levels from the personal to the political. At the personal level, it was thought that individuals should be able to exercise choice over their own lives and particularly over questions such as abortion or sexual life-style – pre- and extra-marital sex or homosexuality. Some felt that all restrictions on sexuality should be lifted even with regard to paedophilia.32 The ‘conversion’ of the socialist left: autogestion and regionalism On the political level, autogestion, best translated as participative and/or direct democracy, became a popular theme in the 1970s. This fitted well with the revival of interest in political regionalism after a period when this was taboo because of the collaborationist activities of some regionalists in Brittany, Flanders and Corsica during the Second World War. But even apart from these episodes, as was explained in the previous chapter, regionalism as a political ideology was largely on the right of the political spectrum. By being adopted as one of the ‘new social movements’, and thanks to a younger generation of regionalists who fell under the then intellectually hegemonic influence of Marxism,33 it was now taken up as one of the ‘causes’ of the new left. In Brittany, Corsica and Occitania, new left-wing regionalist movements, strongly influenced by Marxist ideology and tiersmondisme, began to appear alongside the more traditional regionalists who remained politically on the right or at least in the centre. There was also a ‘swing to regionalism’ on the part of some important sections of the mainstream left. Michel Rocard, who founded the Parti Socialiste Unifié – PSU

The ‘Trente Glorieuses’ (1945–1975) and their Aftermath 61

(United Socialist Party) in 1960, espoused the notion of autogestion, which became the central tenet of his party’s programme. But the 1970s were a period of renewal of French socialism in general and this would have enormous consequences for French territorial politics.34 In 1971, Mitterrand grouped together the different currents of French socialism, including his own party, the SFIO (Section Française de l’Internationale Ouvrière (French Branch of the Workers’ International), the PSU of Rocard, and various other factions of the left, into the Parti Socialiste – PS (Socialist Party). In 1972, the PS entered into a pact with the Parti Communiste Français – PCF (French Communist Party) and the Mouvement des Radicaux de Gauche – MRG (Left Radicals), with a view to presenting a united front at the 1974 presidential elections. The united left candidate Mitterrand lost to Giscard d’Estaing in this election but the strategy of unity paid off in the May 1981 elections when Mitterrand beat Giscard d’Estaing by a significant margin. Furthermore, the PS won the parliamentary elections by a large majority in June of the same year. The left was in power for the first time in over 20 years and for the first time since the setting up of the Fifth Republic. Mitterrand had described the Fifth Republic as a ‘coup d’état permanent’ (‘a permanent coup d’état’), referring to the implicit authoritarianism of the presidential system devised by De Gaulle and Michel Debré but, once in power, he was happy to work in the institutions he had so bitterly criticized for over 20 years.35 What is the significance of these developments for French territorial politics? Firstly, during its long period in the political wilderness, the left profoundly reworked their fundamental ideology and policy programme, influenced particularly by the events of May ’68 and the new currents of thought such as autogestion and regionalism outlined above. The older socialist movements such as the SFIO and the PCF had been traditional Jacobin centralists who looked askance at these kinds of decentralization. The new PS of Mitterrand, on the contrary, began to embrace them, especially as Rocard’s PSU was now incorporated into the party. Secondly, and more specifically, before the 1981 presidential elections, Mitterrand presented his programme in the form of 110 proposals (Les 110 Propositions du Candidat Mitterrand). Among these proposals, no less than six (54–59) were devoted to decentralization and regionalism grouped under the dramatic heading: Des contre-pouvoirs organisés: un état décentralisé (‘organized opposition power: a decentralized state’). Furthermore, proposal 54 made some specific promises to the regions: Corsica would have a special statute (statut particulier), the French Basque Country would be united in a single department instead of two, while proposition 56 promised to respect minority cultures and to promote the teaching of minority languages. But the most important proposals were those which formed part of the more general promise to initiate a programme of decentralization, including radically changing the role of the prefects, creating regional governments, and

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upgrading the role of the other local authorities. In the end, the new socialist government did not fulfil all its promises; for example, a unified Basque department was not created and the Bretons were unhappy at the final outcome of the promise to support minority languages. What is remarkable, however, is that most, if not all, of the promises were kept. Corsica was granted a special statute and minority cultures and languages were more favourably treated (although this was not enough for the language militants). But the most important development following the election was the launch of what Gaston Defferre, mayor of Marseille and Minister of the Interior and Decentralization, called ‘la grande affaire du septennat’ (the great issue of the seven-year presidency): the programme of decentralization, which is the basic topic of the rest of this book.

Conclusions Before the Second World War, France was noted for the several changes of its political system with its various regime changes but for the slowness with which its society and culture changed. After the war, this situation began to be reversed. Now there were rapid social, economic and cultural changes but the political system, apart from the change of regime from the Fourth to the Fifth Republic, remained rather inert. At least this is true of the system of subnational territorial governance. The massive economic and societal transformations within France could be truly described, in Mendras’s words, as a ‘seconde révolution’ on a scale comparable to the Revolution of 1789. The principal changes were in the economic system but also in patterns of urban and rural settlement and especially the decline of traditional agriculture and the massive urbanization of the 1960s. All of these changes called for a serious examination of France’s territorial governance and this is what occurred when the Socialists came to power in 1981 and launched the decentralization programme. To this we now turn.

3 The Decentralization Programme: An Overview (1982–2006)

Decentralization,1 ‘la grande affaire du septennat’, was to be the socialists’ flagship policy and, ultimately, was to have a more lasting impact than the other more traditionally socialist reforms such as nationalization, the introduction of labour legislation (including, for example, the reduction of working hours) and more generous social welfare provisions. The latter reforms were the socialists’ attempt, in the early 1980s, to promote ‘Keynesianism in one country’ – France – in an international context where other countries were, by contrast, adopting the neo-liberal, market-based approaches pioneered by the US President Ronald Reagan and the UK Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher. This approach, designed to increase welfare state provision in France, was severely punished by the international markets and by the flight of capital from France. By 1983, the socialist government, under Prime Minister Laurent Fabius, changed tack and fell into line with the other countries of Europe, returning to a modified version of the liberal policy approach which had been followed by Giscard d’Estaing. The decentralization reforms, on the other hand, proved to have a longer-lasting impact, although there is still a sense, 20 years or so after they were first initiated, that they are still incomplete.2 The decentralization proposals of the new socialist government, promoted by Gaston Defferre, as Minister of the Interior and Decentralization, were strongly backed by Prime Minister Pierre Mauroy. Both ministers were also powerful mayors of Marseille and Lille respectively and this would have an impact on the nature of the reforms. At first, the reforms were opposed by the right-wing parties, now in opposition, and especially by the Gaullists, still strongly attached to the centralized unitary state (despite their master’s conversion in 1969 to a kind of regionalism). Objections were also voiced by members of left-wing parties, including the Communist Party, the Mouvement des Radicaux de Gauche – MRG (Radical Left Movement) and by socialists such as Jean-Pierre Chevènement, leader of a think tank called the CERES (Centre d’études, de recherches et d’éducation 63

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socialiste – Centre for socialist study, research and education). President Mitterrand, too, was ambivalent about the reforms, in the same way as the British Prime Minster Tony Blair has been reticent about devolution in the UK. In truth, the objections came mainly from those individuals and parties – later self-described as ‘souverainistes’ – who had a traditional Jacobin understanding of the state and who feared that decentralization would endanger the principle of the unity and indivisibility of the Republic. They particularly opposed the creation of regional governments, fearing that these would challenge the role of the departments, which they viewed as important instruments of the republican state. Nevertheless, despite this opposition, the reformers had the momentum and energy to press ahead with the reforms. Compromises, nevertheless, still had to be made, in order to appease the objectors. For example, while the proposal to set up elected regional governments was adopted, the department was retained despite the political and administrative complexity that this would involve. This, in fact, is an aspect of French administrative history that surprises outside observers who tend to think of the French as bearers of a more rationalistic Cartesian intellectual tradition. In practice, they do not seem able to suppress previously existing institutions when new ones are created, thus leading to a very messy situation. This is known as the ‘millefeuille institutional français’, after the little gooey cake known as a ‘millefeuille’, which contains many interpenetrating layers of cream and pastry. The second important compromise, also related to this difficulty of suppressing layers of government, was that there was no attempt made to reduce the number of municipalities. Both of these issues – the problem of the great number of municipalities and the rivalry between the traditional departments and the new regions – are the subject of further analysis in later chapters. It was these compromises and failures that led a number of early commentators to conclude, rather hastily, that the reforms did not introduce significant change into the French political and administrative system and that it was a case of ‘plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose’ (‘the more things change, the more they stay the same’) or as the Italian writer Giuseppe di Lampedusa expressed through one of the characters in his novel The Leopard: ‘si deve cambiare tutto per non cambiare nulla’ (‘For things to remain the same, everything must change’). An early French commentary on the decentralization reforms, entitled Le Sacre des Notables, published in 1985 under the pseudonym ‘Jacques Rondin’, but, in fact, a collective work written mainly by civil servants,3 claimed that all that decentralization had achieved was the underpinning and strengthening of the pre-existing system of rule by notables, which had characterized the existing French system of central-local relations and which had already been analysed by sociologists such as Michel Crozier, Jean-Claude Thoenig and Pierre Worms.4 The system of ‘complicity’ between the prefects, the administration and the local politicians, the notables, was a kind of part-

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nership which held the politico-administrative system together and will be described in more detail when we examine the political and administrative characteristics of France in a later chapter. The interpretation of the decentralization reforms adopted by ‘Rondin’ and most French and some British analysts, at least in the early years of the reforms, might be labelled ‘a priori scepticism’. This reflected a general pessimism about the very possibility of significant political or administrative reform, and was to bedevil research into French decentralization for several years to come.5

The first phase of decentralization: an irreversible impetus for change through legislation A more accurate analysis, which is now probably the dominant view in French academic writing on the subject, is that decentralization has been highly significant and has introduced important changes in the system of central-local relations in France, even if the changes that actually took place were not always those which had originally been envisaged by the reformers. The early stages of the reforms, between 1982 and 1986, were crucial in bringing about these changes. The strategy adopted for initiating and carrying them through was to launch an intensive programme of legislation in order to create an irreversible momentum, as Gaston Defferre explicitly stated in introducing them. The first of the laws introduced was that of 2 March 1982,6 a framework law, which stated in its first article that it would be fleshed out and completed by other laws. The initial 1982 law was like a train engine pulling along the subsequent laws, which were the carriages of the train.7 By December 1985, when the legislative process came to an end, some 40 laws and 300 decrees had been adopted by the parliament and government.8 These covered topics ranging from the establishment of elected regional government and the reform of the role of the prefects and the presidents of local councils to the creation of a special status for Corsica, the overseas territories and the big cities such as Paris, Lyon and Marseille. For those in favour of decentralization, it is clear that the approach adopted by Defferre was the correct one and the reforms’ opponents very quickly realized that they could do little to reverse the changes and opted instead to live with them. At the same time they did succeed in modifying some of the more radical proposals, such as the creation of a single Basque department, which had been part of the 110 Propositions du Candidat Mitterrand. The socialist government, on the other hand, themselves delayed the introduction of some of the reforms (such as the establishment of the new regional councils, for which elections only took place in 1986) mainly as a result of fears that the new councils would become a base from which the right-wing parties could oppose the government. The results of the 1986 elections confirmed this fear as the majority of regional councils

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were indeed won by the right-wing parties who did subsequently make use of this power base. At the same time, the coming into operation of the new regional councils succeeded in consolidating the decentralization reforms since by this stage the right were locked into the new system and saw its advantages.9 The underlying rationale of the 1982–1986 reforms But why did the socialists launch the decentralization reforms in the first place? What was their underlying rationale? It seems a surprising approach given the ferocious Jacobinism that had characterized most of the French left since the French Revolution. To answer this question, several reasons can be advanced. First, there was the realization that the French politico-administrative system did not harmonize well with the massive socio-economic changes that had been taking place since the Second World War, described in the previous chapter. Second, during the long period when the left was in opposition, there was an attempt to revamp its political ideology with a view to bringing it up to date and distinguishing it from the right-wing parties who had been in power for over 20 years and whose exercise of this power in the Fifth Republic had become increasingly autocratic given the important position of the president in this system.10 Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, in particular, had been mercilessly lampooned by satirical magazines such as Le Canard Enchainé for his allegedly neo-monarchist pretensions. Decentralization and regionalism, therefore, were two themes quite suitable to differentiating the left-wing opposition from the right-wing governments. A third factor was that there was, in the late 1970s, a general tendency within Europe towards decentralization11 which was undoubtedly picked up by modernizers within the Socialist Party such as Michel Rocard. There were also the changes outside the traditional left that we have already noted and, in particular, the swing to the left of a new generation of regionalists. There had long been criticism of the excessive centralization and uniformity that characterised the French state and its distance from the citizen. The explosion of May ’68 was seen as an indicator of this. The socialists interpreted the issue as a crisis of democracy, which they interpreted as both participatory and representative democracy. The decentralization reforms were, therefore, a means of bringing government closer to the citizen and allowing the individual to become more involved in the decisions that affected his or her life. This involved rethinking the nature of citizenship but also the nature of the Jacobin state, which had been built on the notion of representative democracy with citizens relating to the Assemblée Nationale in Paris through their representatives. The traditional Jacobin antipathy to regionalism or any notion of corporatism (intermediate bodies between the state and society) was based on the notion that they

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undermined this understanding of citizenship where the citizen does not possess any characteristics, such as gender, skin colour or religion, but is simply an individual who chooses his representative whom he sends to Paris.12 Among those who promoted decentralization there were some who argued that it would not undermine this Jacobin understanding of citizenship and the relation between the citizen and the state. Mitterrand himself commented that, on the contrary, the reforms expanded and developed Jacobinism. Instead of being based on centralization, standardization and uniformity, the ‘new’ Jacobinism would henceforth be characterized by decentralization and pluralism. The fourth principal reason for the reforms is related to the previous one and is concerned with the French administrative system. It was argued that decisions taken in the central ministries in Paris were imposed on the rest of the country without adequate consultation. This description was something of an exaggeration, and the realities of policy formulation and implementation were more complex than that stereotypical picture suggests. Nevertheless even the more sophisticated analysis of a system of complicity, put forward by authors such as Michel Crozier, in works such as Le Phénomène Bureaucratique and La Société Bloquée, had emphasized that the French political and administrative system was ‘stalled’ (bloquée).13 Decentralization, then, was to be a means of ‘unblocking’ the system through improved levels of citizen participation as well as bringing about its streamlining and modernization. To what extent have the reforms achieved these aims? It can be argued that none of these worthy goals has been achieved in full. The main beneficiaries of the reforms, at least initially seem to have been, indeed, the local notables, particularly those in the bigger cities as the book Le Sacre des Notables suggested. Following the reforms, the average citizen did not feel a greater proximity to, or involvement in, government and policy-making. With regard to the aim of modernizing and streamlining the system, it was undoubtedly the case that, far from doing so, decentralization has made it more complex and therefore more obscure to the average citizen. The French find it easier to change a regime – for example from a monarchy or empire to a republic – than to abolish an existing level of government, for example a department or a municipality. There is thus now a new layer of government, the region, alongside the state, the department and the municipality, while the more than 36 000 municipalities remain in place. Furthermore, because of the system of ‘contractualization’ (planning now takes the form of contracts drawn up between the state and the regions, as we shall see in the chapter on the region below) and the way in which the powers of different levels of government are divided up and shared with each other, the lines of demarcation between all these levels of government are now less clear-cut, in part thanks to the fudges and compromises made during the initial stages of the reforms.

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This catalogue of failures to meet the original objectives of the reforms, was accentuated from 1983 onwards by the ideological and pragmatic shift of the socialists when they abandoned some elements of their ‘new left’ democratic socialism and began to adopt more neo-liberal approaches to policy and politics. In effect, this changed the meaning of decentralization itself, which increasingly became less about political democracy and administrative modernization and more about passing on some of the central governmental functions and responsibilities to lower levels of government. In other words, it now resembled the Anglo-Saxon preoccupation with ‘less state’ at least at the national level. This mirrored the crisis of the welfare state experienced by most western states during this time and, in the French case, decentralization was dubbed ‘la décentralisation de la pénurie’ (‘the decentralization of penury’). While these criticisms are largely justified, they do not, however, tell the whole story and even underestimate the real import of the decentralization reforms. What we will argue here, to the contrary, is that the reforms did result in quite radical changes to the French politico-administrative system but that those changes did not always correspond exactly to the intentions of the original reformers and certainly did not meet the expectations of the new regionalists and autogestionnaires who had influenced the 110 Propositions du Candidat Mitterrand to a large extent. It is now time to examine in some detail what changes were sought in the first phase of the reforms. The legislation14 The initial 1982 law15 laid the foundations and set the tone for the subsequent legislative avalanche and represented a significant break from the previous system of central-local relations in France. It contained three key provisions. First, the role of the prefect was transformed by the suppression of his exercise of the system of a priori supervision (la tutelle a priori) of the activities of local authorities and its replacement by an a posteriori supervision (la tutelle a posteriori) of the legality of the authorities’ activities. The previous system had meant that prefects could interfere at an early stage in the political and policy decisions of local authorities while the new system means that he can only intervene, under certain conditions, after decisions are taken and only with a view to ensuring that those decisions are in conformity with national legislation. The Constitutional Court (le Conseil constitutionnel) ruled that this new system was compatible with the Constitution but qualified this by ruling that the prefect should be able to bring a case before an administrative judge. This was confirmed in a further law passed on 22 July 1983,16 which also introduced a few minor modifications such as the provision that the prefect must inform the local authority of his intentions to bring a case to the administrative tribunal before this

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happens. This provision was, in fact, introduced with the aim of resolving problems without the need to resort to the courts. It was in the interest of the local authorities to avoid the court procedure which they might very well lose and to rely on such a more informal approach. At the same time, it reaffirmed the continued importance of the role of the prefect, even if this role had altered. The second major innovation of the law, the corollary of the first, was the transfer of executive powers over the local authorities from the prefect to the presidents of the departmental and regional councils (known respectively as the conseil général and the conseil régional). This amounted to a radical redefinition of the roles of these figures. Previously, the prefect alone had been the executive of the departmental council. This meant that he drew up the council’s agenda, chaired its meetings and oversaw the implementation of its decisions. The prefect had also been the executive of the old établissements publics régionaux (EPRs – regional agencies), the forerunner of the new regional councils. Although these new councils, elected by universal suffrage, would not come into existence until 1986, the 1982 law transferred immediate executive responsibility from the prefects to the presidents of the existing councils. Another consequence of this change was that the ‘field services’ of the state (these were the territorial branches of the central ministries) and the administration of the department were separated. Previously, they had been interlinked as a result of the two ‘hats’ worn by the prefect, who oversaw both the field services as well as the provision of services by the department. The third important reform to emerge from the 2 March 1982 Law was the transformation of the region from a mere quango (établissement public) into a fully-fledged local authority (collectivité territoriale). This was more than just a change of nomenclature and signified an upgrading of the region’s constitutional and political status. Its democratic legitimacy was strengthened by the provision that the regional council would be elected by universal suffrage (although in practice the effect of this provision was seriously curtailed by the electoral system adopted, as we shall see later in this book in the chapter on the political aspects of decentralization). The upgrading and recognition of the regions as local authorities were symbolized in the title of the law itself by the grouping together of the three local authorities into one category – ‘communes … départements … régions’. The region also obtained a new advisory body, the Comité [later renamed Conseil] Économique et Sociale – the CESR (Economic and Social Committee). There is little doubt that these measures had a radical impact on the way in which local and regional government functioned in France and on the configuration of relations between the state and the local authorities. Although, from the point of view of the fervent advocates of decentralization and, especially, of greater regionalism, the reforms did not go far enough, they were, nevertheless an important step in the direction of

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meeting their demands. The 1982 law was followed by further legislative changes which developed its basic thrust. These covered items as diverse as the chambres régionales de comptes (regional audit tribunals), special statutes for Corsica17 and the overseas territories and for Paris, Lyon and Marseille, and different forms of electoral system for municipalities of different sizes, to mention but a few. We shall have occasion to return to these issues later in this book as we examine in greater detail particular aspects of the reforms. For the moment, we shall continue to paint the broad canvas of the reforms. Transfer of powers to the local authorities and division of responsibilities across levels of government18 The transfer of powers was accomplished in a series of laws passed in 1983, 1985 and 198619 that established the principles underlying the transfer of powers as well as setting out the division of responsibilities across the different levels of government.20 The original idea of the reformers, enunciated as an application of the principle of subsidiarity in the law of 7 January 1983, was to transfer specific ‘blocs’ of powers to be exercised exclusively by each of the different levels of government. In practice, this proved impossible to implement since functions were often shared among them. The 1983 laws also stipulated a number of other important features of French inter-governmental relations. The local authorities do not act alone, but in collaboration with the central state, and this should take place in a harmonious manner. There is no hierarchical relationship among the local authorities, and no authority may exercise control over another. This provision was included in order to prevent larger authorities from dominating smaller ones and may also have been a result of the fear that the new regions, as a ‘higher’-level authority, might dominate the departments. At the same time, it was recognized that very small municipalities might not be able to exercise all the functions demanded of them, and might lack the necessary expertise. In these cases, they could call on the help of the department in juridical, technical or financial matters. An important aspect of the transfer of powers was that they should be accompanied by a transfer of financial and other kinds of resources to the local authorities in order to enable the local authority to exercise their new powers effectively (we shall examine this in greater depth in a later chapter). The power to raise and collect certain fiscal resources such as the car tax (vignette automobile) was, therefore, transferred. The state also set up a block grant system (dotation générale de decentralisation) which gave the local authorities greater autonomy than the previous system of ear-marked grants. Other resources which were transferred included some of the state’s field services, in particular a section of the Directions Départementales de l’Equipement – DDE (Departmental Management of Facilities/Amenities) and most of the Directions Départementales des Affaires Sanitaires et Sociales – DDASS (Departmental Management of Health and Social Matters)

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Although it proved impossible to assign one block of powers exclusively to a single local authority level, each level was given primary responsibility for a block (their ‘vocation dominante’21). A 2002 law gave expression to this idea in that one level of government would play the role of ‘leader’ (‘chef de file’), in a particular policy sector. This had previously been deemed unconstitutional by the Constitutional Court and, as a result, Article 72 of the Constitution was revised to allow the application of the principle of subsidiarity: ‘… les collectivités territoriales ont vocation à prendre les décisions pour l’ensemble des competences qui peuvent le mieux être mises en oeuvre à leur échelon’ (‘the local authorities have the responsibility to take the decisions for those powers that are most effectively implemented at their level’). Thus, the vocation of the region was to develop longer-term planning perspectives and have primary responsibility for the following policy areas: economic planning; training, apprenticeships and further education; management of upper secondary schools (lycées) and agricultural colleges. The task of the department would be to manage welfare services and promote social inclusion (which included social policy and assistance), manage rural infrastructure, school transport outside the city limits and lower secondary schools (collèges). Finally, the municipality, the level closest to the citizen was to be the expression of ‘l’administration de proximité’ (‘local administration’) providing and managing services used on a daily basis such as urban transport, crèches and primary schools, town planning, libraries and museums. This structure and division of powers eventually proved to be hard to implement in practice, as many of the powers and functions overlapped. Furthermore, critics accused the government of decentralizing cumbersome and expensive responsibilities to the local authorities without always providing the necessary financial and administrative resources that would allow the latter to exercise those new responsibilities effectively. These transfers took place over a period of about six years (1982–1988) and, as time went on, powers not mentioned in the original laws were transferred during and after this period.22 The principle of experimentation was also recognized during this period when some local authorities could try out the exercise of new competences before a more general transfer took place. This was notably the case with regard to the regions which sought to enlarge their field of competences as they grew in experience and selfconfidence. A 1995 law, for example, permitted six regions to experiment with regional rail services.23 Local administrators and politicians The legislative programme of the 1980s tackled two other aspects of territorial politics and administration. The first, embodied in two laws passed in 1983 and 1984,24 was, in effect, an attempt to create a decentralized civil service (fonction publique). The 1983 law was concerned with the entire French civil service but included provisions relating to local administrators.

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It was completed by the 1984 law dealing specifically with territorial administration as well as with other agencies such as those administering social housing (HLM – habitations à loyer modéré) and joint local authority organizations. The laws created in effect three separate systems of public administration in France: state, local authorities, and hospitals. Although local politicians were not given such a comprehensive legislative treatment, a law passed on 30 December 1985 did have an important impact on their position. This law limited the number of posts they could hold simultaneously to just two out of a specified list set out in the law: deputy (MP), senator, member of the European Parliament, mayor of a municipality above 20 000 inhabitants, departmental or regional councillor. This modified, to some extent at least, the system known as the cumul des mandats, the simultaneous holding of several public functions, which had characterized central-local relations in France since the 19th century. Neither of these attempted reforms proved a great success. In 1987, a law25 was passed which radically altered the underlying intentions of the 1982 law by strengthening the role of the executives of the local authorities in the appointment of territorial administrators and allowing variation in the conditions of service depending on local circumstances. In effect, this ended the notion of creating a standardized nation-wide, territorial administration, which had hitherto characterized French administration. The law limiting the cumul des mandats was also ineffective as politicians found ways to circumvent the application of the law. A mayor, for example, would simply hand over the reins to a deputy mayor who would keep his mayoral seat ‘warm’ while he performed other functions. In effect, the exmayor would still control the municipality in practice. We shall explore this issue in a further chapter devoted to the political dimension of subnational government.

The second phase of decentralization: La décentralisation rénovée By the end of the 1980s, two things were clear. First, decentralization in France was irreversible and had produced significant changes in the French politico-administrative system. Furthermore, although almost every French political party was divided between those who favoured a greater degree of decentralization (whom we propose to call neo-Girondins) and those who favoured greater state involvement (traditional Jacobins), no-one envisaged a return to the old highly centralized and uniform system. Second, it was clear that the reforms were incomplete and had created a rather confused and chaotic system of territorial governance. Many critics pointed to the excessive number of layers of territorial government, with three subnational levels, the region, the department, and the municipality, existing alongside the central state and, increasingly, the European Union. Some thought that the decision not to choose between the region and the depart-

The Decentralization Programme: An Overview (1982–2006) 73

ment was a mistake, an opinion mostly held by regionalists. Besides this piling up of levels of government, there was also the problem of the lack of clarity and the overlapping of the exercise of powers between the different levels of government. This caused duplication, waste and lack of transparency. Far from bringing citizens closer to the administration, this had the effect of further alienating them. In fact, it was sometimes argued that the citizens were the great absentees from the decentralization reforms, which had mostly benefited local politicians such as the notables, as well as local administrators. When Jacques Chirac became Prime Minister in March 1986, he announced that the process of decentralization should slow down and this undoubtedly had a dampening effect on them. Even before this statement was made, however, they were already running out of steam. One benign interpretation of this was that the essential elements of the reforms were now in place and a halt should be called to them. On the other hand, those in favour of greater decentralization argued that the process of reform needed to go further, rather than decelerating, as it was still incomplete. But, despite Chirac’s desire to slow the pace of reform, several more important laws were in fact passed in the 1990s under both conservative and socialist governments. In 1992, for example, a framework law on the ‘administration territoriale de la République (ATR – ‘territorial administration of the Republic’),26 was passed by parliament which sought to improve citizens’ participation in local decision-making and permitted local consultations on a number of issues.27 This law also gave official recognition and some rights to the position of minorities within the local councils and a number of other reforms which show that the process of decentralization, while it was stalled, did not exactly go into reverse. The 1995 Pasqua Law Chirac was elected president in 1995 and appointed Alain Juppé28 as his first prime minister. During Juppé’s premiership a law was passed that while it did not represent a great advance at least kept the decentralization process alive. This was the 1995 Law29 on territorial planning and development, drawn up by a right-wing Minister of the Interior, Charles Pasqua and therefore known as the Pasqua Law. Pasqua was situated firmly on the political right and was noted for his strong Jacobinism but his law marked a significant change in planning policy in comparison to that adopted during the period of the Trente Glorieuses. In effect, the period of nationalized planning approaches characteristic of the earlier period was now past, and the new approach had to adapt to the changing realities of local differentiation. The role of the Commissariat du Plan, the French Planning Agency, had already changed with the abandonment of its national planning function and the adoption of a more strategic role in 1993 and the Pasqua Law confirmed this new orientation. Henceforth, planning would take place at the regional level through the Contrats de Plan Etat-Région (CPER – state-region planning contracts). At the same time an attempt was

74 Subnational Government

made to tackle the problem of the multiplicity and fragmentation of the municipal system. The key notion put forward in the legislation was the concept of pays, which involved the bringing together of rural municipalities with a view to developing development projects tailor-made for a specific geographic area with distinctive cultural, social or economic characteristics. Following this approach, in 2001, nine schemes for the provision of collective services were substituted for the Schéma National d’Aménagement et Développement du Territoire – SNADT (National Scheme of Territorial Planning and Development). ‘La decentralisation rénovée’ of Lionel Jospin and the Voynet and Chevènement Laws (1999–2000) When Jospin became prime minister, albeit appointed by President Chirac, he launched a plea for a ‘décentralisation rénovée, to the presidents of the departmental councils, meeting in Toulouse in October 1999. During his premiership, three more laws, two in 1999 and one in 2000,30 were passed which continued within the same logic as the Pasqua Law. They further developed the practice of inter-municipal grouping and collaboration and recognition of the specific planning needs of different territories. The 1999 Voynet Law on sustainable territorial development, named after the Minister of the Environment who drew it up, strengthened the notion of inter-municipal co-operation through the establishment of the pays in rural areas but also through the parallel notion of the agglomération, which grouped together municipalities in urban areas. The Chevènement Law, also passed in 1999 and prepared by the Minister of the Interior (an arch-Jacobin like Pasqua), was an attempt to simplify and streamline the system with the creation of a new structure, la communauté d’agglomération. This new institution would exercise many compulsory tasks and would have its own fiscal resources – the taxe professionnelle unique. The 2000 law on social inclusion and urban regeneration (SRU – Solidarité et Renouvellement Urbain)31 attempted to bring some coherence into this diversified and somewhat fragmented system through the Schemas of Territorial Cohesion (SCOT – Schémas de Cohérence Territoriale) developed by the agglomerations and supplemented by the Local Urban Plans (PLU – Plans Locaux d’Urbanisme). The SCOT and the PLU had to work in harmony with each other. The latter replaced the Plans d’Occupation des Sols – POS (Land Use Plans), which were the old urban planning instruments used previously by local governments. These three laws not only developed a new decentralized approach to territorial planning and development, they also began to tackle successfully the problem of municipal fragmentation and lack of institutional capacity. Finally, a bill on local democracy32 (la démocratie de proximité) was another attempt to encourage greater citizen involvement in local government by developing new forms of participation such as neighbourhood councils (conseils de quartier) in municipalities of more than 80 000 inhabitants.

The Decentralization Programme: An Overview (1982–2006) 75

By the end of the 20th century, therefore, the French system of centrallocal relations had undergone quite radical changes. These changes followed on from past trends, at the same time as introducing new kinds of institutional arrangements. Thus, the pre-revolutionary municipalities continued to exist, officially unchanged, as did the revolutionary departments and the Napoleonic prefects but alongside these traditional institutions of territorial governance, new bodies were created: the regions and new forms of inter-municipal association as well as neighbourhood councils. The end result of all these developments has been a rather confused and messy picture in need of rationalization. For this reason, in 1999, Prime Minister Lionel Jospin, asked Pierre Mauroy, who, as Prime Minister in 1982 had overseen the first phase of decentralization, to set up a commission to report on the way forward to relaunch and give coherence to the second phase of decentralization. Although this second phase had already begun, the Mauroy Commission was to give a new impulse and sense of direction to the process. The 2000 Mauroy Report on the future of decentralization33 Mauroy submitted his report to the prime minister in October 2000. It contained 153 proposals aiming to ‘refonder l’action publique local’ (‘to give a new basis to local politics and administration’) and recommended a legislative programme with 12 major themes. The explicit aim of the report was to recommend ways in which the French institutions of local governance could be brought into line with the important socioeconomic and demographic developments of the country. It painted a picture of a serious lack of harmony between an economically depressed geographical centre of the country and the five surrounding dynamic regions34 which accounted for almost two thirds of economic growth throughout the 1990s. Three-quarters of the population lived in the 361 urban areas of the country and the economically dynamic centres of growth did not coincide at all with the political and administrative boundaries of the country. Furthermore, the accelerating process of integration of the European Union was presenting new challenges to territorial governance which would have to be met. The Commission set itself the goal of reflecting on these challenges in order to find ways of meeting them, which both avoided a recentralization of power, and the undermining of the principles that underpinned the 1982 reforms. At the same time, the Commission’s aim was to address some of the functional problems that had arisen over the years such as the complexity and number of the different levels of government and the lack of clarity in the role of the central state. The report presented a radical vision of what territorial governance of France might look like in the year 2015. It envisaged strong regions capable of engaging in economic competition with their European partners;

76 Subnational Government

directly elected inter-municipal councils; departmental councils selected by a modernized electoral system and with more clearly defined functions. There would be a new division of functions among the different levels of government according to the principle of subsidiarity. New forms of citizen involvement were proposed, especially at the submunicipal level. There would be an experimental phase to test such proposals before they were more widely adopted. Finally, there would be a profound reform of local fiscality with a view to reinforcing local autonomy and facilitating the creation of stronger and more systematic links between citizens and the public policy choices being made in their name, in order to improve the accountability and legitimacy of local government. Before Jospin could begin to implement at least some of the measures of this report, he was defeated in the parliamentary elections of May 2002 and it was left to his successor Jean-Pierre Raffarin to take over the baton of renewing the decentralization process.

La Décentralisation – Acte II Raffarin’s political background made him well suited to tackle the decentralization dossier. Although he was appointed prime minister by Jacques Chirac and could relate well to the chiraquians, he was in fact of the political stable of Giscard d’Estaing and had spent much of his political career in local and European rather than national politics.35 This background gave him a certain sympathy for the idea of decentralization and one of his first statements was to announce what he called ‘La decentralisation – Acte II’ (‘Decentralization – Part II), Acte I being the early phase of reforms from 1982–1986. Perhaps the most remarkable of Raffarin’s reforms was to change the 1958 Constitution through the passage in 200336 of a constitutional law which would alter the very self-definition of the French Republic, henceforth known as a ‘République décentralisée’. The new constitution laid out a number of basic principles with regard to the organization of the state. First, it recognized the state’s decentralized character. Second, it recognized the principle of subsidiarity. Third, it gave, for the first time, a constitutional guarantee for the principle of local self-government (in French ‘libre administration’37) as well as the guarantee of adequate resources to fulfil this. Fourth, there is the introduction of a number of elements of direct democracy. Fifth, is the acceptance of the right to experiment by local authorities. Finally, there is the recognition that the overseas departments and territories might adapt their institutional arrangements (their statuts) to their specific circumstances. There is little doubt that the Raffarin reforms constitute a massive step forward in France’s effort to complete its decentralization project. This is so because of the importance of public law and the Constitution in the French case and because the Constitutional Court had been something of a conser-

The Decentralization Programme: An Overview (1982–2006) 77

vative brake on previous reforms because they infringed the constitution then in force. By enunciating clearly these six principles, the carpet is, to some extent, removed from under the Court and more audacious measures now become possible. But what is most fascinating is that France has given a radically new definition of what it is as a nation-state. Gone are the notions that centralization and standardization are the norm and these are replaced by a definition that recognizes decentralization but also asymmetry, diversity and experimentation. All of this is a far cry from the old definition prevalent from the time of the Revolution until 1982 when the new approach began to be adapted.

Conclusions Since 1982, France has profoundly revised and adapted its system of territorial governance marking a shift from the period of the Trente Glorieuses with its Fordist, standardized systems of economic production and uniform systems of welfare benefits. During this period, subnational government acted primarily as the agents of the central government whose aim was to complete the process of nation- and state-building by top-down, centralized systems of control. In this early period, France, like other western states, was something of an enclosed entity, with clearly defined national and local identities. During this period the vast majority of French citizens had little or no contact with countries outside France. Nevertheless, the socio-economic, demographic and spatial patterns of French society during this period were changing rapidly because of the rural exodus and the growth of city-dwelling. These changes erupted into the open with the events of May ’68, which did not upset the traditional political system of the Fifth Republic but did give rise to a radical reformulation of culture and shift in mentality. A number of ideas gained influence during and after the ground-breaking events of May ’68, including, in particular, the notions of individual freedom and the related concept of autogestion as a form of political organization. Regionalism rediscovered a new élan and moved to the left penetrating parties such as the PSU and, eventually, the new Socialist Party of François Mitterrrand. All of these currents bore fruit with the 1982 decentralization programme of the newly elected socialist President and Party. But this was also the period (1984) when the European Community was relaunched and Jacques Delors, at the head of the European Commission, brought in his 1992 Single Market Programme. The relaunch of the Community would lead eventually to the creation of the European Union with the revisions of the Treaty at Maastricht and subsequent revisions at Amsterdam and Nice. Part of these European reforms were the upgrading of the EC’s Regional Policy, hitherto simply a means of harmonizing national regional policies, to a fully-fledged European Policy. It was soon absorbed

78 Subnational Government

into the Structural Funds and became part of a more ambitious and wider Structural Action Policy. These developments at the European level stimulated a vast mobilization of regional and local authorities across Europe who sought to improve their political and economic situations partly by drawing on structural funds and partly by political lobbying through organizations such as the Assembly of European Regions or the Conference of Peripheral Maritime Regions. This triggered serious reflection by both academics and policy-makers in the European Commission and the European member states on territorial governance itself, which formed part of a wider debate on the changing nature of governance and on the position of regions and other local authorities in the new governance structures. A general consensus developed that, faced with the challenges of Europeanization and globalization, the regional and local were important foci of political action and of economic and social development. There was a new appreciation of the role of culture in general and of regional and local culture in particular in this new development paradigm. There was a greater acceptance of regional and local diversity even with regard to institutional forms and commentators began to speak of notions such as ‘asymmeytrical government’ and ‘asymmetrical federalism’. The examples of countries like Spain and Italy were at hand to illustrate how these might work in practice. French academics and policy actors were not immune to these wider changes and this is probably a significant change in itself. Whereas in the past the French elites, at least, had regarded the French public administration system as the model to follow, now they became increasingly willing to look outwards at other models and many even began to learn English, which was fast becoming the lingua franca of the international policy and epistemic communities. This was therefore, the new context in which the reforms of the 1990s were formulated. It is evident that many of these new ideas were enshrined in the laws passed during the 1990s as well as in the proposals of the Mauroy Report. The new legislation and the report were criticized, on the one hand, by those who felt that they had not taken the process of decentralization far enough and on the other hand, by those who thought the legislative changes went too far and undermined the authority of the state. There is, nevertheless, little doubt that they are a serious attempt to bring France’s politico-administrative system into line with the broader (socio-economic, cultural and political) developments outlined above. Alistair Cole, in a useful overview of the reforms examines them from three distinct conceptual lenses: as part of a wider process of state reform and an example of ‘steering at a distance’, a concept drawn from the literature on the ‘new’ governance; as part of an iterative process of local and regional capacity building; and, finally, as a test of linkages between identity formation and meso-level institutions.38 He concludes that, although each of these aspects of the ‘dynamic process’ unleashed by

The Decentralization Programme: An Overview (1982–2006) 79

decentralization is present, it is capacity building that is the dominant theme. The remainder of this book will examine the reforms in greater detail in order to assess how successful they have been. It should be pointed out, however, that there is currently a wider debate in France about the nature of the French political system and the necessity (or not) of constitutional change to give greater recognition to the new territorial politics. This is a debate which divides almost all of the French political parties with advocates of change pitted against advocates of tradition. The remaining chapters of this will zoom in on particular dimensions of the decentralization reforms – the political and administrative institutions and actors – which we have examined thus far with a broad brush.

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Part II The Institutions of French Subnational Governance

UK

Belgium Lille Luxembourg

Channel Islands

Amiens Rouen

Châlons-enChampagne

Caen

Metz Strasbourg

Paris Rennes

Germany Orléans

Nantes

Dijon Besançon Switzerland

Poitiers

Lyon Limoges ClermontFerrand

Italy

Bordeaux

Toulouse Montpellier Spain Map 2

The capitals of the French regions

Marseille Ajaccio

4 The Municipality (Commune): Between Local Democracy and Effective Governance

The municipality is the oldest of the French units of local government and, in its modern form, was officially created during the early months of the French Revolution by a decree of 14 December 1789. Its origins, however, go back much further than this as the municipal boundaries corresponded closely to the old church parishes of the Middle Ages and the origins of these may even lie with administrative units traced out when much of present-day France was Gaul, a province of the Roman Empire. At the time of the French Revolution, and, indeed, until the middle of the 20th century, most French people lived in the countryside in small villages and hamlets. The municipality was the political and institutional expression of this rural and villageois way of life and, despite the rural exodus and urbanization of the past 50 years, French people retain a strong attachment to it. This is one of the reasons why it has been so difficult to reduce the huge number of small municipalities in France – about 36 000, or more than all the municipalities combined of the member states of the old EU15. Today, the French authorities seem to have accepted that it is impossible to reduce the number of municipalities by diktat from above, as was the case in countries such as the UK, Germany and Sweden, but that a more voluntary bottom-up approach is required in shape of voluntary and incentive-driven municipal co-operation. This chapter will outline these recent approaches to municipal reform but, before doing so, it will present new ways by which French planners have conceptualized urban space and then how the municipalities function in practice.

Reconceptualizing French space: changing patterns of urban settlement Simply listing the vast number of municipalities, or pointing out the inadequacy of the smaller ones to carry out the tasks allocated to them, fails to do justice to either the complexity or the dynamics of the French municipal system. Although the INSEE (Institut National de la Statistique et des 83

84 Subnational Government

Études Économiques – the National Institute for Statistics and Economic Studies) uses the municipality as the basic unit of their ten-yearly censuses of the French population, since 1999 they have developed a number of new concepts which try to capture basic patterns of urban organization and to measure how these have changed over a 30-year period from the 1960s until the 1990s, what they call: ‘Des nomenclatures territoriales pour évaluer l’urbanisation et prendre la dimension de la ville’ (‘Terminology to evaluate urbanization and to assess the importance of towns’). The two basic concepts are the unité urbaine (UU – ‘urban unit’), which defines an urban complex by its physical characteristics, and the aire urbaine (AU – ‘urban area’), which refers to socio-economic patterns of residence and employment. The urban unit is a group of municipalities with a total population of at least 2000 inhabitants and whose buildings are separated from each other by a distance of no more than 200 metres. An urban area is a group of municipalities consisting of a pôle urbain (PU – urban pole) and a couronne périurbaine (commuting belt). The pôle urbain consists of a unité urbaine, with at least 5000 work places of which at least 60 per cent are occupied by residents of the ‘unit’ (that is, not more than 40 per cent of the residents work in another ‘unit’). The couronne périurbaine, consists of a number of rural municipalities or urban units at least 40 per cent of whose residents work in the remainder of the aire. Although this seems a rather complicated way of measuring urban patterns, it allows the INSEE to paint a picture of contemporary patterns of urbanization and how these have changed over time. Furthermore, the analysis allows us to go beyond a mere description of municipalities to see the dynamics that lie underneath the politico-administrative institutions. We can thus discern that, in 1999, there were 57 unités urbaines each with more than 100 000 inhabitants (Table 4.1). It can be seen, first of all, that Paris is still the largest unité urbaine with just over 9.6 million inhabitants.1 There are only three other large unités urbaines with more than a million inhabitants, although they are still quite far behind Paris: Marseille-Aix-en-Provence (1 349 772), Lyon (1 348 832) and Lille (1 000 000). Nice, Toulouse and Bordeaux are largish cities, while the rest are medium-sized with populations between 100 000 and 500 000. This still tells us little of the dynamics of urban change in France and, to grasp this, we need to turn to the second basic concept of pôle urbain (PU) which refers to the socio-economic features of an urban area. The growth of cities can be seen from the progression of the numbers of PUs, which rose from 319 in 1968 to 347 in 1975, 359 in 1982, 361 in 1990 to 354 in 1999.2 The reduction of the number of PUs between 1990 and 1999, despite an increase in the overall population of France, is explained by the fusion of some PUs during that period. The percentage of the French population living in PUs remained stable at 61 per cent on both dates. A more focused analysis of trends shows that between 1982 and 1990, several new PUs appeared in specific locations: in the vicinity of large cities such as

The Municipality (Commune): Between Local Democracy and Effective Governance 85 Table 4.1

Population sizes of urban units in 1999

Unité urbaine Paris Marseille-Aix-en-Provence Lyon Lille * Nice Toulouse Bordeaux Nantes Toulon Douai-Lens Strasbourg * Grenoble Rouen Valenciennes * Nancy Metz Tours Saint-Étienne Montpellier Rennes Orléans Béthune Clermont-Ferrand Avignon Le Havre Dijon Mulhouse Angers Reims Brest Caen Le Mans Dunkerque Pau Bayonne Limoges Pointe-à-Pitre-Les Abymes Perpignan Amiens Saint-Denis Nîmes Saint-Nazaire Annecy Fort-de-France Besançon Thionville Saint-Pierre

Population en 1999 9,644,507 1,349,772 1,348,832 1,000,900 888,784 761,090 753,931 544,932 519,640 518,727 427,245 419,334 389,862 357,395 331,363 322,526 297,631 291,960 287,981 272,263 263,292 259,198 258,541 253,580 248,547 236,953 234,445 226,843 215,581 210,055 199,490 194,825 191,173 181,413 178,965 173,299 171,773 162,678 160,815 158,139 148,889 136,886 136,815 134,727 134,376 130,480 129,238

86 Subnational Government Table 4.1 Population sizes of urban units in 1999 – continued Unité urbaine Troyes Poitiers Valence Lorient Montbéliard

Population en 1999 128,945 119,371 117,448 116,174 113,059

Paris, Genève-Annemasse (a cross-national PU), Bordeaux, Montpellier, Provence-Sud-Rhôdanien, Marseille-Aix-en-Provence and Limoges; on some coastal areas in the west and south of the country such as Dinard, Agde, Hendaye, Sainte-Maxime and St-Tropez; and in a few isolated areas such as Saint Marcellin or Avallon. On the other hand, some disappeared but this was largely a phenomenon of either intensifed urbanization, such as the fusion of existing PUs as when Aix-en-Provence was joined to Marseille or Saint-Jean-Luz to Bayonne, or by the absorption of a PU into the couronne périurbaine of a large city such as Lyon or Paris. Some PUs in rural areas simply ceased to exist, an example of rural economic decline. Between 1990 and 1999, there were 18 ‘appearances’ and 25 ‘disappearances’ of PUs. These trends have led to an increasingly important concentration of the French population around a limited number of pôles urbains. In 1999, the most important PU, Paris, contained 16.5 per cent of the population of metropolitan France (that is, excluding the overseas territories and departments); the largest 10 PUs contained 29.6 per cent of the population; and 50 per cent of the population lived in the top 91 poles. One aspect of urban development is population growth. In the period 1962–1968, 21 PUs alone accounted for half of the growth, and 84 PUs accounted for three-quarters of the growth of the French population during this period. Between 1975 and 1982, this slowed down (perhaps related to the economic slow-down caused by the 1973 oil crisis) but, after 1982 the trends towards concentration and growth in a limited number of urban poles continues. The principal areas where this growth has taken place are: first, Paris, then the Midi (Côte d’Azur, Avignon and Montpellier), Bordeaux, Toulouse, Strasbourg, Lille, parts of the Centre and West and, finally, some parts of the Alps from Geneva to Grenoble. With regard to the internal characteristics of the new urban areas, there are a number of trends that can be discerned from the census statistics.3 The most notable trend has been the spreading out (étalement) of the cities with a migration from the city centres towards the periphery. This urban decongestion is what the French call desserrement urbain. The initial trend was a migration towards the suburbs (la banlieue). The period 1975–1982

The Municipality (Commune): Between Local Democracy and Effective Governance 87

saw the departure of poorer families to the suburbs because of the high costs of accommodation and other services in the city centres. To meet this demand, urban planning during this period concentrated on building cheap housing in what were called urban priority zones (ZUP – zones à urbaniser en priorité), an approach that had already been in existence since the 1960s as a way of dealing with slum housing and the shanty towns in which North African migrants then lived. The ZUPs became notorious for the poor quality of the housing, often high-rise blocks of flats, numerous social problems, high levels of crime and their concentration of very poor families many of them of immigrant origin. The rapid deterioration of these housing projects led to an expansion of the suburbs even further out in the countryside, assisted by near universal car ownership and the building of new roads and other forms of transport into the city centres. The trend towards the creation of new commuter belts began in Paris and then spread to other French towns and cities. It intensified in the 1960s but especially the 1970s before slowing down in the 1980s and 1990s.4 The inhabitants of the commuting belt, the homo suburbanus, have a very different profile from the denizens of the banlieue. They will typically be employed in a service industry as a technician or secretary, will own their own house, usually a spacious individual house with a garden front and back and will possess two cars. These are a necessity, since both partners are obliged to work and most work in or near the city centre. In 1990, 4.5 million workers made the journey from the commuting belts and suburbs of the towns into the city centres. In the 1990s, however, this tendency towards urban spread has slowed down and there is now evidence of a second trend, the return to the city or, to be more precise, the commuter belt continues to grow, albeit more slowly, while there is a resurgence of the city centres, but at the expense of the banlieue, which continues to stagnate. Of course, these are just general trends which may mask important local and regional variations. They do, nevertheless, provide a useful snapshot of the patterns and dynamics of territorial settlement in France in the second half of the 20th century. Table 4.2 shows the overall picture of a France in which three-quarters of the population lives in areas that are predominantly urban, although these include less than one-third of the 36 000 municipalities. But urban France can be further broken down into different forms of urban living and the settlement patterns of these different forms have been changing over the period we have been examining. The question is whether the existing forms of territorial government are adequate to provide institutional, political, administrative and public policy responses to these underlying sociological realities. While decentralization was an attempt to adapt French territorial governance to contemporary trends in governance, it is clear that, by itself, simply transferring functions and responsibilities to lower levels of government is

88 Subnational Government Table 4.2

The population in different urban and rural categories Nombre de communes

Population totale 1990 (en milliers)

10,706 2,813 7,893

41,278 34,372 6,906

312 858 75

1.04 1.15 0.53

2,537

1,956

68

0.59

Espace à dominante urbaine

13,243

43,234

270

1.02

Espace à dominante rurale

23,327

13,381

35

0.89

France métropolitaine

36,570

56,615

104

0.99

Aires urbaines Pôles urbains Couronnes périurbaines Communes multipolarisées

Densité de la population 1990 (hab./km2)

Rapport emplois/ actifs 1990

Source: Recensement de la population 1990, INSEE.

not sufficient to meet the needs of the new urban realities. In the 1990s, as part of the new phase of decentralization, two new tacks emerged as ways of both reducing the inefficiencies of large numbers of municipalities and for bringing citizens into the system of local governance. The first of these was the attempt to amalgamate municipalities into larger units – the supralocal approach. The second was to decentralize even further to the neighbourhood level: the infra-local or neighbourhood (quartier) approach. Before examining these developments, however, it will be useful to say what are the tasks of all the municipalities.

The institutional structure and functions of the municipality5 The role of the municipality was defined in an 1884 law,6 prepared by the Minister of the Interior, René Waldeck-Rousseau, which democratized French local government and still forms the legal basis for its activity. Article 61 of this law stated: ‘Le conseil municipal règle, par ses déliberations, les affaires du ressort de la commune’ (‘The municipal council is responsible, through its deliberations, for all affairs related to the municipality’). French local government, therefore, has a power of ‘general competence’, unlike in Britain, where it is parliament which defines explicitly a local authority’s powers and the local authority must not go beyond these (the principle of ultra vires). The general competence assigned by the 1884 law is the basis of local autonomy and, in theory, the municipal council may take decisions on everything that affects the locality. It is also con-

The Municipality (Commune): Between Local Democracy and Effective Governance 89

sulted by the prefect. In practice, though, the legal status of the French municipality is ambiguous. On the one hand, since the municipal council is elected by universal suffrage, it has the status of legitimate democratic government, with, as we have seen, a wide remit to deal with any matter affecting the affairs of the municipality. On the other hand, it acts on behalf of the central government in carrying out specific tasks designated by the state. It has also been suggested that one of the differences between France and other states, such as the United Kingdom and Sweden, is that whereas the latter have systems of local government, the French system is more characterized as local administration. But this is only partially true and is only one part of this ambiguity. The municipal institutions The French municipality is divided into two branches: the municipal council (the conseil municipal), which is directly elected by universal suffrage, and the executive, consisting of the mayor (maire) and deputymayors, who are elected by the council. Council elections take place every six years and, since 1982,7 municipalities with populations 3500 and above use a mixture of majoritarian and proportional methods of election, while those with populations below this number use only the majoritarian (the electoral system will be treated more fully in a further chapter below). The executive, consisting of the mayor and his deputies (whose number must not exceed 30 per cent of the total number of members of the council), are elected by the council in up to three rounds of majority voting. They are elected in the first or second rounds when there is an absolute majority and, failing this, by a simple majority in the third and final rounds. The internal organization of the municipality is largely determined by the Code général des Collectivités territoriales (CGCT – general rules for local authorities) although the council itself may decide on the number of its committees (commissions) and what areas, for example finance, urban policy, culture, education, and so on, for which they are responsible. Since 1992, in an effort to encourage greater citizen participation, councils may also establish consultative committees (comités consultatifs), which are open to members of the public. Within the same perspective of encouraging greater participation, councils may organize local referendums, although these remain purely advisory and do not bind the elected council in any way. They can be held only on issues that fall within the competences of the council (but, since the council has a power of general competence in local affairs, this includes everything that is ‘local’). The mayor Perhaps even more important than the elected council is the mayor and it is he8 who most embodies the ambiguities referred to above. This is because he wears two hats. On the one hand, he is an agent of the central state responsible for a number of administrative functions, such as

90 Subnational Government Table 4.3

The municipality’s areas of responsibility

Areas

Scope for action by the municipality

Town Planning

Publication of the plan d’occupation du sol – POS (use of land plan). Inter-municipal development of the overall plan. Issuing permits relating to the use of land, e.g. permits de construire (planning permission) for buildings when the municipality has a POS.

Social Services and Health Care

The centre communal d’action sociale – CCAS (communal centre for social services) draws up the files on social benefit applications and analyses the social requirements of the population. Opportunity to exercise certain departmental responsibilities through participation in the welfare budget.

Professional Training

Creation of a training programme.

Education

Responsibility for primary and nursery schools, their creation, construction, provision of facilities, upkeep and running. Opportunity to accept responsibility for the facilities and running of all institutions in the municipality. Consultation on the central government-region contrat de plan (planning contract).

Economic Development

Inter-municipal Charter for Area Development and Infrastructure.

Infrastructure Development and the Environment

Opportunity to set up a programme to aid the development of facilities in rural areas. Maintenance in rural areas of those services essential to their inhabitants. Proposal or agreement on the creation of architectural and urban heritage zones. Agreement on the creation of nature reserves.

Ports and Waterways

The creation, maintenance and exploitation of marinas for leisure use.

Housing

Laying down a local housing programme.

Public Transport

Organization of the urban transport network.

Culture

Central lending libraries and other libraries. Conservation of municipal archives. Creation and organization of museums.

Decentralized co-operation (Law of 6 February 1992)

Agreements with outside local authorities in those areas for which they are responsible.

Source: Bécet (2001), pp. 103–104.

The Municipality (Commune): Between Local Democracy and Effective Governance 91

publishing laws and regulations, organizing elections and the 10-yearly census and conducting ‘republican’ marriage ceremonies, which are compulsory even if there is a church wedding. On the other hand, he is the representative and the executive arm of the democratically elected council. In this capacity, he prepares the budget and implements the decisions of the council. He also represents the municipality in activities such as signing contracts or authorizing the holding of markets and fairs. He is responsible for the municipal police and ensuring good public order and security. Besides these obligatory functions the mayor may be asked by the council to take on other duties in different areas of municipal affairs such as taking out a loan to finance a local activity or creating new school classes. Finally, the mayor is the head of the local administration and must ensure that the municipal services function effectively. Municipal responsibilities We have already referred above to the power of general competence over municipal affairs which the municipality theoretically holds. This, however, has been defined in a more circumscribed way since the local government law of 1884 and, again, by the 1982 decentralization laws. The traditional functions of local government since the 1880s have included: keeping the civil registry (records of births, deaths and marriages); performing ‘republican’ marriages; organizing elections; local policing; some social welfare functions; the upkeep of municipal roads (of which there are 500 000 kilometres in France); physical maintenance of primary schools; local development and planning. The 1982 decentralization laws added three new areas to these traditional functions: urban policy; new responsibilities in education and culture; and economic development.9 Table 4.3 summarizes the municipalities’ current areas of responsibility. It is important to note that 1982 decentralization transferred some functions that had traditionally been reserved to the central state to the local level and especially those pertaining to social services and health care (although in most cases these new competences are not exclusive but shared with the other levels of government, especially with the department and the central state). Every municipality, whatever, its size, is meant to carry out these functions, although the vast majority of French municipalities, given their small size, are clearly incapable of doing so. To this problem we now turn.

Reducing the large number of French municipalities Most outside observers of French local government are astonished by the large number of local authorities in France compared to other countries. In 2003, the official figure was 36 778 in all of France, including the overseas

92 Subnational Government

territories and departments (DOM-TOM – Départements d’Outre-Mer and Territoires d’Outre-Mer) and 36 564 in metropolitan (that is, European) France.10 In the 1960s and 1970s, the organization of the Welfare State and the role this assigned to local authorities suggested that the latter could carry out their tasks more effectively if they were larger rather than smaller. This led many European countries to reduce their number: in West Germany they went from 24 386 to 8501 between 1965 and 1975; in England and Wales from 1383 to 402 in 1972; in Belgium from 2359 to 589 between 1970 and 1977; and in Sweden from 2500 to 279 in 1952 and 1973.11 Today, there are 437 in the United Kingdom, around 8000 in Italy and the same number in Spain. In the Spanish case, critics find that even this number is too large. But more important than the number of municipalities is the small number of their inhabitants – which determines what fiscal – local taxation – and human resources are available which, in turn, affects their capacity to carry out the tasks they are supposed to perform. More than 25 000 French municipalities have fewer than 700 inhabitants each while more than half of the French population live in municipalities of more than 10 000 inhabitants. To an outsider it seems remarkable that all of these municipalities have the same status, whatever their size or the number of their inhabitants.12 This can be seen from the example of the tiny municipality of Chastel Arnaud, lost in a valley in the Vercors area. In 1982, Chastel Arnaud had an official population of 13 (!), most of whom resided outside the valley. Those who actually lived there were the communist mayor, a bachelor, who was one of the last farmers left in the area and lived with his elderly mother, plus two baba cool (back-to-the-landers) who lived in the ruin of a farmhouse with their forty goats.13 It is true that the municipality did experience a population growth of almost 400 per cent in the 1990s and by 1999 had risen to …. 36 (this does not refer to the goats)! Yet this municipality has the same status as Valence or Montélimar although it is quite incapable of performing the very onerous tasks required of it by French law. While attempts have been made in the past to reduce the number of municipalities to a manageable number, these have usually come to nothing. Why have the French retained such entities? One reason is that the French have traditionally been strongly attached to their municipality, which they regard as an expression of local democracy. It is this attachment to the locality which also explains why most French politicians seek a local mandate alongside their national political positions, the cumul des mandats system which French governments have found it so difficult to reform as we shall see in a later chapter. This is not to say that the French system is without its defenders. Jacques Ziller, a French law professor, has mounted a spirited defence of the French system and has even claimed that France is not the only country to be exceptional.14 It all depends on the perspective from which you compare it.

The Municipality (Commune): Between Local Democracy and Effective Governance 93

From a topographical perspective, the Netherlands and Denmark are exceptional because of the flatness of their countryside, while Austria and Greece are distinguished by their almost entirely mountainous character. Sweden is an exception given the vastness of its territory (Malmö to Rome is the same distance as Malmö to Kiruna, Sweden’s northernmost town in the Arctic Circle). If we categorize the municipality by the average size of its surface area, then France is not so exceptional and may be placed with Germany, Greece, Luxembourg and the Netherlands (which have between 17 and 24 square kilometres on average). While we can agree with Ziller that the question of the exceptionality of the number of France’s municipalities may have been approached in a rather simplistic manner, it still does not adequately answer the question as to whether the vast number of tiny municipalities are really able to carry out the tasks assigned to them, particularly following decentralization. In practice, most are not capable of doing so and rely heavily on either the department or on the state’s field services. Encouraging inter-communal co-operation: syndicats and EPCI’s (Établissements publics de Coopération intercommunale)15 In practice, the French authorities have long recognized that the majority of municipalities are too small but, rather than forcibly amalgamating them, have rather relied on the method of inter-municipal co-operation. One of the more successful formulas for this in fact was adopted at the end of 19th century when an 1890 law16 created the single purpose inter-municipal association (the SIVU – syndicat intercommunal à vocation unique) which allowed municipalities jointly to ensure technical services such as electrification or water supplies or to deal with issues which affected a wider area than their own boundaries such as transport, environmental health or urban policy. During the 1950s, the growth of the post-war economic boom made it imperative to create new local authority structures and, in 1955, syndicats mixtes, bringing together municipalities, departments and local agencies, were permitted.17 The next step was to create in 195918 the multi-purpose inter-municipal association (the SIVOM – syndicat intercommunal à vocation multiple) which could carry out a variety of tasks, rather than the single task of a SIVU. Finally, in 1988,19 was created the syndicat ‘à la carte’ in which a municipality could adhere to an association for some purposes but not for others. This law also aimed at making the intermunicipal associations more flexible and easier to leave if a municipality so wished. The syndicat formula was undoubtedly successful if we measure success by the fact that it was widely adopted by French local authorities up to the start of the 1990s. By that time, there were 16 500 SIVU and 2500 SIVOM. Nevertheless, the syndicats proved incapable of tackling many of the problems facing local authorities because of what Serge Regourd describes as their too ‘liberal’ character: by permitting the participating municipalities to retain a high degree of autonomy the latter could

94 Subnational Government

‘co-operate when they wished, how they wished, in those areas that they could freely choose themselves’.20 France, in the 1950s and early 1960s, was rapidly urbanizing with the rural exodus and the new work opportunities available in cities and towns. This called for different solutions in urban areas, leading to the creation in 1959.21 of districts urbains (urban districts), which differed from the syndicats in that their purpose was to ease the relationships between a municipality at the centre of an urban area and those on the periphery. In 1970, the formula was also applied to rural areas.22 Unlike the syndicats, however, the districts were not a great success, especially in the larger urban conglomerations which were then undergoing massive concentration and growth. This realization led to the creation in 196623 of the communauté urbaine (CA) a more integrated structure than those already discussed. The 1966 law created four CAs: Bordeaux, Lille, Marseille and Strasbourg. During the 1970s, a number of new towns were created and a law passed in 1983 gave these a juridical status, syndicats d’agglomération nouvelle (SAN), of which there are today nine, including five in the Parisian banlieue. By the 1990s, it had become clear that some of these structures were either not working effectively or had failed to keep pace with the changing realities of French society. The picture was of a disorderly inter-municipal system in which the handful of CAs more or less corresponded to the large urban conglomerations and where the districts, particularly in urban areas were little respected because of the burdensome tasks they were at times called on to perform (for example, fire services or housing).24 It was clear by the turn of the decade that some order would have to be imposed on the system. The result was a framework law in 1992 on the administration territoriale de la République (ATR: Territorial Administration of the Republic)25 which created two new structures: the communautés de communes (CC) and the communautés de villes (CV). The CCs, present in both rural and urban areas, were more successful than the CVs, perhaps because of the fact that the new structures would have a certain degree of fiscal autonomy and this put off the existing municipalities. The 1992 law attempted to strike a middle path between the fusion model, the forced amalgamation of municipalities, and the more flexible but ineffective syndicat model. The new structures would be based on the voluntary coming together by the municipalities (although with financial incentives and some elements of compulsion) but would be more integrated than the syndicat. The law had four main features: • A territorial planning approach. To achieve this, a new administrative body was created in each department, the commission départementale de la coopération intercommunal (CDCI), chaired by the prefect and whose task is to draw up a schéma départemental de la coopération intercommunal. The schéma defines the relevant boundaries of co-operation.

The Municipality (Commune): Between Local Democracy and Effective Governance 95

• Compulsory transfer of powers. Rather than simply leaving it to the free choice of the participating municipalities, the law defines which functions are to be transferred. These should be in policy areas with an infrastructural dimension such as economic development and spatial planning. • Own resources. The syndicats were financed simply by members’ subscriptions. The new associations would have their own resources deriving from a certain percentage of the local taxes raised or by simply taking over one of these taxes, the taxe professionnelle. Furthermore, the central state would also make available a number of grants to the associations, the most important of which is the dotation globale de fonctionnement (DGF – general operating grant), but also the dotation de développement rural (DDR – rural development grant). These were important financial incentives to encourage co-operation. • Obligatory co-operation. It was envisaged that some compulsion might be applied to force a municipality into an association. The law drew on a previously existing provision which had never been implemented, known as the ‘two-thirds/half rule’. This gave the prefect the power, once an inter-municipal boundary had been agreed, to oblige a municipality to participate if two thirds of the municipalities, representing at least half of the entire population, were in favour. Despite these good intentions, the new law was not fully implemented.26 The prefects chose not to amalgamate compulsorily those municipalities that did not wish this but, instead, followed the more traditional path of voluntary co-operation. In general, although the structures set up by the 1992 law were an important breakthrough in solving the problem of municipal fragmentation, the tendency has been to adopt a minimalist approach rather than exploiting them to the fullest extent possible. Furthermore, the 1992 law left in place the previously existing structures – the ‘millefeuille institutionnel’ – instead of suppressing those which had become redundant. This meant that now, co-existing alongside each other were the SIVU, SIVOM, districts, communautés urbaines, syndicats d’agglomération nouvelles, etc. and now the communautés de communes and communautés de villes! Furthermore, none of these bodies, including the CCs and CVs, fulfilled the criteria of democratic legitimacy since their councils were simply nominated by the municipalities. This meant that, although the latter had their own fiscal resources through local taxation, they could not be held accountable at the ballot box by the citizens who paid these taxes. Nevertheless, despite these deficiencies, Serge Regourd regards the new law as amounting to a ‘révolution tranquille’ which gave a new impetus to intermunicipal co-operation. By 1999, there were 1350 communautés de communes and about 18 000 municipalities in inter-municipal associations with own fiscal resources.27 Furthermore, French municipal organization in the form

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of these inter-municipal associations was now approaching European norms as the CCs contained on average 20 000 inhabitants. But, clearly, they could be improved still further. The 1999 Chevènement Law28 was an attempt to bring some order into the situation and, at the same time, push forward the drive towards intermunicipal co-operation. The 1999 law took what was, in France, an unprecedented step: it abolished two pre-existing levels of territorial governance, the communautés de villes and the districts, while creating a new one, the communauté d’agglomération (CA). The CVs and districts were destined to disappear by 1 January 2002. The CVs could choose between becoming a communauté de communes or a communauté d’agglomération if they fulfilled the criteria for the latter. If they had not made the choice by January 2002, they would automatically become a CC. The districts, for their part, could choose between becoming communautés urbaines, CAs, or CCs. Failing to make the choice by the required date, they too would become a CC. Clearly, the most advantageous option was to become a communauté d’agglomération, which was the centrepiece of the Chevènement Law. This was primarily aimed at restructuring inter-municipal co-operation in urban areas and the CA would have the right to raise its own tax, the taxe professionnelle unique (TPU). What was distinctive and new about this law was that it attempted to define more precisely the geo-demographic basis of the new authorities, which contrasted with the ‘laxism’ of the 1992 law.29 The CA should have a population of at least 50 000 inhabitants and one town with a population of at least 15 000. In cases where there is no town of this size, the departmental capital (chef-lieu du département) can be the main town. The territory should be self-contained and without any enclaves (that is municipalities within it that do not belong to the agglomération). As well as having the taxe professionnelle unique (TPU), the CA also gains additional powers, or ‘blocs’ of competences, obligatorily transferred to it: economic development, spatial planning and urban policy. This law differs from previous ones in that there is a precise definition of what each of these blocs of competences entails. The law also provides a number of important and, one might say, irresistible financial and legal incentives for municipalities to adopt the CA formula: the dotation globale de fonctionnement (DGF); the possibility of adding another local taxe (the impôts ménages) to this; and the recognition of the CA as one of the actors that might be engaged in sustainable development activities under the StateRegion Planning Contracts. The drive towards inter-municipal co-operation in France has been an undeniable success. As of 1 January 2004, there were 2461 inter-municipal structures with their own fiscal resources in place involving over 31 400 municipalities (almost 86% of the total number) with 51 million inhabitants (84% of the total French population, or, if one excludes Ile-de-France, 92% of the population).30 Between 1992 and 1996, there were around

The Municipality (Commune): Between Local Democracy and Effective Governance 97 Table 4.4 2005

Progress of EPCIs with their own fiscal resources in France from 1999 to

Communuatés urbaines Number Number of municipalities included Population covered Those with the Taxe Profesionnelle Unique (TPU) Number Number of municipalities included Population covered

1999

2005

12 309 4 638 381

14 355 6 210 939

– – –

11 322 5 872 185

– –

162 20 392 934

1347 15 200 18 049 741

2343 29 172 25 297 156

93 863 2 784 341

922 11 281 12 816 340

9 51 715 025

6 34 352 573

Communauté d’agglomération Number Number of municipalities included Communauté de communes Number Number of municipalities included Population covered Those with the Taxe Profesionnelle Unique (TPU) Number Number of municipalities included Population covered Syndicats d’agglomération nouvelle Number Number of municipalities included Population covered

Source: OECD, Examens Territoriaux de l’OCDE: France (2006), p. 209.

200 EPCIs created each year, after which the number dropped to an average of about 100 per year. Between 2000 and 2003, the figure was slightly more than this average because of the creation of the new CAs but then dropped below it. This does not signify that the drive towards inter-municipal structures was running out of steam but rather that the French territory was becoming saturated with EPCIs and there were fewer possibilities of creating new ones. The period between 1999 and 2004 shows a dramatic increase in both the number of municipalities coming together and the percentage population covered (Table 4.4). Finally, another indicator of how successful this movement has been can be seen in Table 4.5 which shows that, in 2005, all the French regions, except for Ile-de-France (43.7%), had a majority of their populations living within an EPCI and in some regions the figure was almost 100 per cent: HauteNormandie: 99.1 per cent; Nord-Pas-de-Calais: 98.7 per cent, Pays-de-la-Loire: 98.3 per cent; Basse-Normandie: 97.5 per cent; Brittany: 95.6 per cent, etc.

98 Subnational Government Table 4.5

Number of EPCIs with own resources by region (2005)

Alsace Aquitaine Auvergne Bourgogne Bretagne Centre Champagne-Ardenne Corse Franche-Comté Ile-de-France Languedoc-Roussillon Limousin Lorraine Midi-Pyrénées Nord-Pas-de-Calais Basse-Normandie Haute-Normandie Pays-de-la-Loire Picardie Poitou-Charentes Provence-Alpes-Côtes d’Azur Rhône-Alpes Régions d’outre-mer Total

Total population covered living within an EPCI à fiscalité propre

% of the regional population covered

1 693 695 2 828 244 1 308 822 1 501 589 2 980 747 2 162 146 1 204 621 188 582 1 125 316 4 869 915 2 266 029 722 332 2 175 478 2 431 188 4 020 684 1 440 935 1 810 072 3 309 532 1 828 154 1 700 110 4 109 119 5 233 878 1 341 412

95.6 93.3 96.1 89.8 97.4 85.6 86.6 69.7 96.8 43.7 94.8 97.2 91.2 90.3 98.7 97.5 99.1 98.3 95.6 98.5 89.0 89.7 78.7

52 252 602

84.1

Source: OECD, Examens Territoriaux de l’OCDE: France, p. 208.

Table 4.6

Demographic repartition of the EPCIs in 2004

EPCIs with 100,000 inhabitants or more: EPCIs with between 50 000 and 99 999: EPCIs with between 20 000 and 49 999: EPCIs with between 10 000 and 19 999: EPCIs with between 5 000 and 9 999: EPCIs with between 2 000 and 4 999: EPCIs with less than 2 000:

less than 5% of total less than 5% of total just over 10% of total just over 20% of total 30% of total between 20% and 25% of total between 5 and 10%

Source: Assemblée des Communautés de France, État de l’intercommunalité, 2004.

The Municipality (Commune): Between Local Democracy and Effective Governance 99 Table 4.7

The division of EPCIs according to their legal status

Districts Communuatés urbaines Syndicats d’agglomération nouvelle Communautés de villes. Communautés de communes Communauté d’agglomération. Total

1972

1992

1996

2004

95 9 – – – –

214 9 9 – – –

318 10 9 4 894 –

– 14 6 – 2286 155

104

232

1235

2461

Source: Assemblée des Communautés de France, _tat de l’intercommunalité, 2004.

Of course, these bald figures tell us little about the nature of the EPCIs and it is necessary to refine the categories further. This can be done by examining them from the point of view of their population size (Table 4.6) or of their juridical status (Table 4.7). The average population of a municipality in Europe is 20 000 inhabitants, but less than 20 per cent of French EPCIs have this number of inhabitants or more while the remainder, more than 80 per cent of the total, have less. Furthermore, between 20 per cent and 25 per cent of EPCIs have populations of less than 5000 and a significant number less than 2000. Clearly, although the inter-municipal movement has made great strides, as we can see from the expansion of CCs and CAs since the 1992 and 1999 laws made them available (Table 4.7), there is still some way to go to completely solve the problem of a multiplicity of municipalities with small numbers of inhabitants. In other words, many of the new inter-municipal associations may themselves still be too small. The development of the ‘pays’ What we have discussed so far is the institutional method of reducing the number of municipalities to a sizeable number such that they can carry out the tasks allocated to them in an efficient and effective manner. Another approach however, was adopted in the 1995 Pasqua Law31 which introduced the notion of pays, which was further developed in the 1999 Voynet and Chevènement Laws.32 The Pasqua Law defined the pays as follows: ‘Ce sont des espaces cohérents, aux plans géographique, culturel, économique et social, qui expriment une communauté d’intérêts et scellent, le cas échéant, des solidarités réciproques entre la ville et l’espace rural’ (‘these are territories that are geographically, culturally, economically and socially coherent, that contain a community of interests and, in some cases, show a reciprocal solidarity between the town and the country’). Pasqua, as a true Jacobin, was concerned with reasserting the role of the central state and strengthening the role of the prefect over the creation of the pays.

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Ironically, however, despite Pasqua’s Jacobin intentions, the pays identified by the DATAR, numbering between 350 and 450, often corresponded to the 421 baillages33 and sénéchaussées, which were local administrative divisions abolished by the 1789 Revolution.34 More in harmony with the spirit of decentralization, was the Voynet Law which also developed the idea of the agglomération and lays out the differences between it and the pays. We have already discussed the communauté d’agglomération above under the heading of EPCIs but it is useful at this point to highlight the differences between the pays and the EPCI, including the agglomération. This is also relevant as the Voynet Law saw the two kinds of inter-municipal grouping as complementary to each other and was an explicit attempt to break down the distance between town and country. Furthermore, both the pays and the agglomération may enter into a contractual relationship with the region thus giving them a special status. This also reinforces the notion of complementarity within the context of an overall regional plan of socio-economic development (see the chapter on regions later in this book). Jean-Louis Guigou, then délégué à l’aménagement du territoire et à l’action régionale (in effect, the prefect in charge of the DATAR), called this new approach to planning and territorial development ‘une vraie révolution’, as it was the expression of a fundamental shift away from conceiving territory in a topdown manner by the French state.35 The differences between the two entities may be found in their differing legal status, the way their boundaries are drawn and their respective roles. The agglomération is an inter-municipal association, an EPCI, like those described above, that is, it is an institution of local government exercising powers and functions delegated to it by the municipality members of the association. The pays, on the other hand, is not a local government institution in this sense but a grouping of local authorities who come together around the notion of a social and economic development ‘project’. The boundaries of each type of grouping are also different and the law states that these should be drawn up in relation to what it calls their ‘territoire vécu’, that is the socio-economic features of a particular territory. Thus, the pays is organized around the territoire defined as a bassin d’emploi’ (its economic features) while the agglomération around the territory is defined as a ‘bassin de vie’ (its residential patterns). The territory of the pays, freely chosen by local actors, must, as the Pasqua Law stated, have a ‘geographical, economic, cultural or social cohesion’ and be adopted by consensus.36 Furthermore, its boundaries should not be constrained by existing administrative boundaries but be based rather on the ‘living’ features of a territory. This approach also permits recognition of local identities, cultures or histories which may not be fully recognized by the existing administrative boundaries of the departments or regions (we saw in a previous chapter how, at the time of the Revolution, an attempt was made to erase these territorial features). The pays, unlike the EPCI, does not have upper and lower

The Municipality (Commune): Between Local Democracy and Effective Governance 101

limits of population, thus making it very suitable for adapting to the great heterogeneity of French society, already outlined in this book. The boundaries of the agglomération, like other EPCIs, must conform to the existing divisions and must respect upper and lower limits of population. Finally, the functions of the two types of association are different. The pays has the task of designing and implementing a development project while the agglomération is more concerned with service delivery like the other EPCIs. A key feature of the pays is its innovatory character. That is, it is meant to be a mechanism which is flexible and open enough to respond to rapidly changing socio-economic trends. The slogan adopted to describe this approach was ‘un territoire – un projet – un contrat [with the regional council]’. However, the pays is seen as a ‘federator’ of existing municipal institutions, co-existing within the same economically defined territory – the bassin d’emploi – rather than a new level of administration or government. It aims to bring together, in a ‘horizontal’ manner, organizations and individuals of different kinds, such as the local authorities, business associations, trade unions, representatives from civil society, individuals possessing a particular expertise, etc. Its mode of operation is bottom-up, seeking to stimulate rather than direct. As the DATAR document already cited expresses it: ‘Le pays s’inscrit … dans une logique de “faire-faire” et de subsidiarité. S’il coordonne et anime, innove et veille au long terme, assiste techniquement les communes et communautés, pour leur permettre de contractualiser avec l’Etat et collectivités territoriales, le pays doit néanmoins demeurer un territoire de projet’.37 It is not difficult to discern here an example of what has been described as ‘governance’ by authors such as Rod Rhodes, Jean Leca and Patrick Le Galès, which highlights the change in the role of the central state from command to ‘steering at a distance’ and encourages bottom-up initiatives.38 In line with this ‘new governance’ perspective, the pays is meant to have a minimalist form of organization, enough to enable it to formulate its development programme and to sign contracts with its various partners such as the region or the state. The pays is also meant to relate to civil society in a different way from the traditional local authorities and this is expressed through the conseil de développement durable (CDD – sustainable development committee), which is meant to be the direct application of the principle of partnership and an expression of the ‘horizontal’ approach mentioned above. The CDD must have a balanced representation of the different ‘stakeholders’ of local development. Local politicians are not necessarily excluded from it but they must always be a minority of the total membership. The EPCI, on the other hand, is composed of members from the local authorities who, in turn, have been elected through the ballot box. The pays outlines its development plan in a Charter, the charte du pays, which is both its founding document and also outlines its development strategy. It is drawn up by the local authorities comprising the pays in

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collaboration with the conseil de développement. The basic approach is to promote ‘sustainable development’ as outlined in the United Nations’ Agenda 21 programme39 which attempts to combine social equality, economic growth and environmental protection. The Charter is composed of the following elements:40 • An analysis of the demographic, social, cultural and environmental features of the territory of the pays over a period of 20 years. • The basic development aims of the pays within a future perspective of at least ten years as well as description of the organization necessary to achieve these aims. • Cartographical evidence which allows the aims to be applied to the territory. Once the Charter is drawn up and approved by the different stakeholders, the regional prefect makes the final decision of approval and fixes the boundaries of the pays. Although it is sometimes thought that the concept of pays is confined to rural areas, in fact, it may also be applied to urban and semi-urban areas.41 In practice, though, it seems to have been most successful in rural France. The idea of the pays has spread across France with great rapidity with this form of inter-municipal co-operation being created in almost all regions, albeit at different rates from region to region. In 2004 alone, the figures went from 99 on 1 January, to 132 on 1 May and 158 on 1 September.42 There were a further 163 pays en projet (pays in preparation). This massive increase during 2004 is partly explained by the fact that the first contracts between the pays and the regions, in the context of the State-Region Planning Contracts, would have to be signed by 31 December 2004. But it also illustrates the final stages of a mobilization that had been occurring for a number of years. By May 2005, there were 343 pays, of which 278 were recognized and 65 in preparation. Furthermore, pays have been created in almost all of the regions in metropolitan France, the exceptions being Ilede-France (the region around Paris), Limousin and Picardie. Not all regions, however, have adopted the system with the same eagerness as the leaders in this regard. This can be illustrated by looking at the percentage of population of a region living within the territory of a pays (either already created or in preparation) as illustrated in Table 4.8. In 13 regions, more than 50 per cent of the population lived within a pays; in seven regions, it was between 20 and 30 per cent; while in the remainder there the figure was less than 15 per cent.43 In a number of regions, coverage is either 100 per cent (Brittany) or near it (Basse-Normandie, 94%; Limousin, 99%), while others cover between two-thirds and three-quarters of the population (Alsace, 68%, Aquitaine, 67%, Centre, 68%, Champagne-Ardenne, 75%, Franche-Comté, 83%, etc.). The reasons for the high coverage of these particular regions vary from region to region. We might, though, note that

The Municipality (Commune): Between Local Democracy and Effective Governance 103

Total (incl. pays interrégionaux)

10 22 10 10 15 21 21 16 1 17 11 0 10 17 13 0 32 11 9 4 14 14 13

1 3 2 1 0 0 11 7 0 0 3 1 7 0 3 1 0 0 10 4 9 2 2

11 25 12 11 15 21 32 23 1 17 14 1 17 17 17 1 32 11 19 8 23 16 15

Percentage of population living within a pays, either existing or in preparation

Pays in preparation (incl. pays interrégionaux)

Alsace* Aquitaine* Auvergne* Basse-Normandie* Bourgogne* Bretagne* Centre Champagne-Ardenne* Corse Franche-Comté* Haute-Normandie* Ile-de-France Languedoc-Roussillon* Limousin* Lorraine* Martinique Midi-Pyrénées* Nord–Pas-de-Calais Pays de la Loire* Picardie* Poitou-Charentes Prov.–Alpes- Côte d’Azur* Rhône-Alpes*

Already existing pays (incl. pays interrégionaux)

Table 4.8 Percentage of population of a region living in an existing pays or one in preparation

71 74 73 93 53 100 70 74 7 83 51 0.2 60 99 42 28 63 34 53 28 58 15 21

Source: DATAR, Etat des lieux des pays au 1 septembre 2005. * regions involved in one or more pays interrégionaux: 13 such pays are recognized and two are in preparation.

Brittany stands out, and its success in creating pays may be explained by its strong corporatist and Christian Democratic political traditions.44 A similar remark might be made of Alsace. At the other end of the scale, it is noteworthy that Ile-de-France has no pays and just one in preparation but this may be explained by the fact that this is, in effect, the Paris region which has its own peculiar socio-economic characteristics which make the pays model less suitable for it. In Corsica, the explanation may lie in its long tradition of internal conflict and the lack of a tradition of collaboration such as exists in Brittany.45

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From the point of view of the rate at which the pays have been granted recognition, we can distinguish four main groups of regions:46 1. Regions where all the pays have been granted recognition, among which we may distinguish: – regions such as Brittany and Midi-Pyrénées with a history of regional mobilization and where the territory has been covered by pays for several years; – regions, such as Limousin, Franche-Comté and Bourgogen, where the pays have been recognized more recently but which are also almost completely covered; – regions, such as Nord-Pas-de-Calais, where all the pays have been recognized but where they only partially cover the regional territory. 2. Regions where about two-thirds of the pays have been recognized, among which we may distinguish: – regions, such as Centre, Aquitaine and Alsace, where new pays have emerged recently but which already had a previous period of recognition of pays; – regions where the pays movement has developed more recently but which have experienced a strong dynamic towards their creation. 3. In the third group around half of the pays have been recognized. In these regions, there may have been previous programmes of territorial policy and this may explain the delay in setting up the pays but it does not signify a lack of dynamism in their creation. 4. The final group is Ile-de-France and the overseas regions which have been absent from the pays movement. Although we will return to the regional question in a later chapter, it is worthwhile to point out here that there are also 15 pays interrégioniaux, of which 13 have been recognized and two are still in preparation (in 2005) as illustrated in Table 4.9. It would require further analysis to say whether all these pays are equally successful in realizing the objectives of balanced and sustainable development as envisaged by the Voynet Law. In truth, the outcomes of the different projects vary greatly. There is also the phenomenon of what has been described as the creation of ‘pays-alibis’, that is, pays in name only.47 But such outcomes are inevitable given the ambitious and innovative nature of this approach, which does indeed constitute ‘une vraie révolution’ and will take time to be inculcated into the culture of French local development. Nicolas Portier, who was responsible for the section ‘pays’ at the DATAR in 2001, commented that the pays were most developed in those regions, such as Brittany, which had also experienced the strongest degree of intermunicipality.48 Furthermore, the creation of the pays was a development favouring solidarity between the town and the countryside by being a

The Municipality (Commune): Between Local Democracy and Effective Governance 105 Table 4.9

Inter-regional pays (2005)

Pays

Régions

Status

Drouais Haut Cantal Dordogne Ternois Vimeu-Bresle Autre Provence Alençon Avre et Iton Charolais Brionnais Forez Langres Lauragais SarregueminesBitche-Sarralbe Sisteronais-Buech Redon et Vilaine Val d’Adour

Centre/Haute-Normandie Auvergne/Limousin Picardie/Nord-Pas-de-Calais Haute-Normandie/Pays de la Loire Rhône-Alpes/PACA Basse-Normandie/Pays de la Loire Centre/Haute-Normandie Auvergne/Bourgogne Auvergne/Rhône-Alpes Champagne-Ardenne/Franche Comté Languedoc-Roussillon/Midi-Pyrénées Alsace/Lorraine

in preparation recognized recognized in preparation recognized recognized recognized recognized recognized recognized recognized recognized

Rhône-Alpes/PACA Bretagne/Pays de la Loire Aquitaine/Midi-Pyrénés

recognized recognized recognized

Source: DATAR, Etat des lieux des pays au 1 septembre 2005, p. 5.

‘plateforme de dialogue’ between the communautés d’agglomération and the communautés de communes. On the other hand, despite this undoubted success, some tensions had arisen in the drawing of the boundaries between them. There were also examples of the creation of pays by rural municipalities as an anti-urban defence mechanism against more powerful urban areas.49 In other cases, the driving motivation underlying their creation was simply the carrot of funding available through the State-Region Planning Contracts, what has been called the ‘terroirs-caisse’ (territorial money box). But, overall, the pays approach should be considered a success story of French institutional innovation.

Neighbourhood councils50 The massive changes in urban residential and commuting patterns outlined at the beginning of this chapter have led to parts of the large cities containing populations mostly, but not exclusively, composed of immigrant groups and their children, who are quite alienated from the mainstream of French life. They are also among the most deprived groups of French society, lacking in educational opportunities and with high rates of unemployment. One of the ways in which the French authorities have tried to tackle this problem and to reduce the degree of alienation from the system on the part of these groups is to develop an urban policy (politique de la ville) which involves the setting up of neighbourhood councils (conseils de

106 Subnational Government

quartier) which allow a certain amount of representation and may qualify for some funding but which do not usurp the decision-making authority of the elected municipal councils. In the 1980s, when urban problems were at their height, a programme called the Développement Social des Quartiers (DSQ) was introduced. There is today a broad consensus among the political parties and administrative elites on the necessity of a new approach. There has been an emphasis on the notion of participation and this underlies the 2002 Law on Local Democracy (Loi de la Démocratie de Proximité) and the majority of local authorities have actively pursued this approach using various mechanisms, such as the setting up of neighbourhood councils. Ambiguities and tensions The policy definitions, however, have often been ambiguous, and policy has oscillated between broader more integrated developmental approaches, such as the Contrat de Ville approach adopted in the early 1990s and approaches more focused on specific neighbourhoods, such as the Pacte de Relance de la Ville introduced in 1996, partly to encourage economic development in selected deprived neighbourhoods and, more recently, the programme of ‘rénovation urbaine’ of August 2003 with its emphasis on physical reconstruction in deprived neighbourhoods. There has also been oscillation between localized funding and management systems and national ones: currently (2005) funding is provided from a central national source. Tension exists between approaches which are focused on specific groups (immigrants, unemployed, large families) who are often concentrated in defined neighbourhoods and approaches which have a wider territorial focus, which seeks to dilute these ‘deprived groups’ into the wider population. The 2000 Solidarity and Urban Renewal Law (Loi sur la Solidarité et Renouvellement Urbain), for example, requires, amongst other things, that in towns with a population greater than 50 000 all municipalities with a population higher than 1500 should have a minimum of 20 per cent social housing, a target to be reached on an incremental basis over a period of 20 years. This is seen as the tension between encouraging ‘mixité’ as opposed to the development of a deprived neighbourhood. Finally, there is often a lack of clarity as to which level of administration – state, region, municipality or neighbourhood council – is responsible for which tasks and who is to pay for them. Despite these difficulties, what is interesting here is that these tendencies represent another strand in the reconfiguration of territorial governance and another step away from the traditional standardized, top-down approach typical of the French state. They demonstrate a system which is in great flux and which still has not found the institutional and governmental mechanisms that are completely appropriate for governance at this level, that is, at the level of very localized problems of social exclusion and deprivation. But, in this regard, France is not alone and almost every

The Municipality (Commune): Between Local Democracy and Effective Governance 107

European state however small (e.g. Ireland) or large (e.g. Germany) or prosperous (e.g. Sweden) is faced with these problems of inner city decay and alienation.

Conclusions France, like other developed states, has struggled to find the appropriate role, size and functions for its local governments but, for a long time has been handicapped by its failure to reduce the number of very small and inefficient municipalities. This is because both French politicians and citizens remain strongly attached to their municipality. Furthermore, the mayor remains an important figure of local life. This is reinforced by the cumul des mandats system, whereby local politicians may simultaneously hold national positions as well. All attempts to reform this system by coercion from above have failed. In recent years, however, a more realistic approach to reform has been adopted. First, thanks to the studies carried out by INSEE, a clearer picture of the territorial patterns of socio-economic reality has emerged. These have changed quite considerably since the Second World War first, as a result of the post-war economic boom and the accompanying rural exodus and rapid urbanization and, secondly, since the 1980s, a host of new problems which have accompanied the shift from the Trente Glorieuses to the years of economic and social crisis. These problems include urban fragmentation and social exclusion as well as new patterns of residence and commuting. These have given the question of municipal reform a new urgency and among the main responses at the level of the municipality has been the development of new forms of intermunicipal organization although these usually co-exist alongside the older forms. In contrast to previous attempts to promote inter-municipal cooperation, the most recent attempts in the form of both EPCIs with their own fiscal resources and the pays have been quite successful at least in terms of their popularity. What is not always clear is how effective these new bodies are in fulfilling the tasks they set out to achieve. What is clear, though, is that they are more capable of fulfilling these tasks than if they remained at the level of single small municipalities. What is also striking is that these new patterns of urban organization reflect some deeper changes in the way in which the role of the state and in which central-local relations within the state are conceptualized. What has changed? First, it is clear that the decentralization reforms which began in 1982 have changed the definition of the state itself. This has been confirmed by the second stage of decentralization and is symbolized by the recognition in the first article of the Constitution that France is a ‘decentralized Republic’. French territorial governance is, as a result, no longer the highly centralized and uniform entity that it was before the 1980s. The role and functions of the state have changed as have the role

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and functions of local authorities. The central state and its representatives such as the prefect and its institutions such as the DATAR, no longer act in a top-down, interventionist manner but now rather see their role as one of facilitating the activities of local authorities – to help them to help themselves. Undoubtedly, the temptation to govern from above still remains, but the developments outlined in this chapter suggest that the new mode of ‘facilitating’ governance is now dominant. The change in the role of the DATAR is most striking in this regard and we shall examine this in a later chapter. Second, the attempts, based on financial and other incentives and carried out in a bottom-up manner, to bring about collaboration among the many different municipalities seem to be bearing fruit. The interesting thing here is the link that is drawn between the INSEE’s socio-economic analysis of urban reality and the new forms of inter-municipal collaboration in both the EPCIs and the pays. From the point of view of innovative institutionalization, both models – the EPCIs and the pays – are overall quite successful. Furthermore, there is an interesting connection between these two quite different forms of co-operation in that not only are the most ‘inter-municipalized’ regions those with the most successful pays, but the two forms are complementary to each other and help break down the distance between town and country. Third, the principles of partnership and subsidiarity now underlie the French politico-administrative system. These are primarily expressed through the contractual approach involving the central state and the regional and local authorities. At the centre of this system is the Contrat de Plan Etat-Région (CPER) which will be examined later in this book, but, following the second wave of decentralization reforms in the 1990s, so also are the new entities of inter-municipal cooperation, the CAs and the pays. Fourth, there have been new institutional arrangements to bring together the municipalities and new contractual funding arrangements between the municipalities and the regions. But also the larger municipalities have been experimenting with new forms of neighbourhood councils as a means of tackling problems of social exclusion and of bringing alienated sections of the urban population into the political process. Undoubtedly, there are still many unsolved problems such as the complexity, lack of transparency and administrative overlapping of the system, all of which result from the simultaneous existence of so many different layers of government and governance. But there are many positive features as well.

UK

Belgium Nord-Pasde-Calais

Luxembourg Haute Picardie Channel Normandie ChampagneIslands Ardenne Basselle-deLorraine Normandie France Alsace Bretagne Germany Centre Pays de la Loire Bourgogne FrancheCompté Switzerland PoitouCharentes

Limousin Rhône-Alpes Auverne

Italy

Aquitaine MidiPyrénées

LanguedocRoussillon Spain Map 3

The regions of France

Provence-AlpesCôte d'Azur Corse

5 The ‘Meso’ Level: The Region vs. the Département

Introduction While most unitary states have at the most one level of intermediate or ‘meso’ government,1 France has two: the department, created at the time of the French Revolution, and its great rival, the region, which has emerged from the shadows of the French institutional labyrinth only with great difficulty. Each institution has its partisans: ‘departmentalists’ and ‘regionalists’ – each is founded in a particular understanding of the French state and how its territory should be organized. The ‘departmentalists’ are firm Jacobins and believe in the unity and indivisibility of the Republic, while the ‘regionalists’ are more like the Girondins and believe it necessary to recognize the diversity of France. It is not surprising that geographers such as Jean-François Gravier or historians such as Fernand Braudel should be among the regionalists, while national politicians such as François Mitterrand on the left or Jacques Chirac on the right should favour the department. But the region slowly asserted itself throughout the second half of the 20th century in the form of indirectly elected agencies of regional development, and this slow emergence came to fruition with the creation of elected regional councils by the 1982 decentralization reforms. Public opinion has been ambivalent on the issue: the opinion polls have shown consistent public support for retaining the department, even if these same polls showed that citizens thought the region was the territorial institution ‘of the future’. One poll taken in 2002 showed that the public still strongly supports the continued existence of the department (81%) and most were opposed to transferring its powers to the region (only 16% were in favour of this). On the other hand, the region comes well in advance of the department with regard to the most appropriate level of government for territorial development. In one opinion poll, 45 per cent chose the region and only 31 per cent the department. Interestingly, not far behind the region were the inter-municipal associations with 41 per cent.2 Nevertheless, neither the department nor the region has succeeded in 110

The ‘Meso’ Level: The Region vs. the Département 111

establishing itself as hegemonic at the meso level, and this chapter will attempt to assess the state of play of the tussle between them.

The department In the first chapter of this book we saw how, from its centre in Paris, the French monarchy slowly, over the course of the centuries, accumulated territories by a variety of means ranging from conquest to dynastic marriage. Some regions, such as Alsace and Lorraine, changed hands between France and Germany on several different occasions in the 19th and 20th centuries, while others, such as Savoie and Nice, became part of France as late as 1860, following popular consultations. We have also seen how, before the Revolution, the French provinces were marked by a considerable diversity in language and culture, law, economic structures, climate and even weights and measures. In order to overcome this diversity and to control the ‘unruly’ provinces, the departments were created by a decree of 4 March 1790. The department is thus the institution most closely associated with the Revolution, as it represents an attempt at a clean break with the past with the subdivision of the old provinces into 83 departments. Originally, when it was first created at the Revolution, the department was meant to be a democratic body with an elected departmental council (the conseil général) with a role and function similar to those of the also newly-created municipalities.3 But this changed with the introduction of the Napoleonic prefectoral system, under which the members of the departmental council were appointed by the central government, as were also the municipal councils and mayors of the important cities (mayors of smaller municipalities were appointed by the prefect). Nevertheless, the department was slowly democratized over the course of the 19th century.4 In 1830, the departmental councils were elected although the department was still only a consultative body, but in 1871 it became a local authority alongside the municipalities. Although the department consolidated its position as the key ‘meso’ level of governance between the municipalities and the state, this has been contested throughout its existence. Among the groups which have done so are the various regionalists and geographers mentioned previously who thought it was too small to deal with meso-level problems such as economic development and, more recently, issues such as environmental problems. During the first years of the Fifth Republic, some of the technocrats responsible for planning sought to rationalize the administrative system and felt that the department was too narrow and inadequate for the administrative tasks of the new regime.5 Furthermore, the rationale which underlay its creation at the time of the Revolution – breaking with the past and providing a ‘rational’ form of territorial administration – is today no longer relevant. First, there is little likelihood that there will be a return to

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the old provinces and, secondly, most French citizens do not ride to the chef-lieu of the department on a horse – apparently the criterion used to determine the department’s boundaries – but drive there in their cars! Despite these doubts, the department’s position as the key intermediate structure was continually strengthened throughout the period of the Fifth Republic until the 1982 decentralization reforms. There was a nervous moment for the departmentalists when De Gaulle held his referendum to set up regions and reform the Senate on 27 April 1969, as many of them thought that the department itself was in danger. Indeed, it was this fear that was one of the factors that led to the defeat of the referendum. Under President Pompidou, the department was associated with the preparation of the infrastructure aspects of the national plan.6 Pompidou was not against the creation of regions but, in a speech in Lyon in 1970, he described these as ‘avant tout une union des départements’ (‘primarily a union of departments’).7 This priority given to the department over the region was reflected in the law which set up the new regional agencies (EPRs – établissements publics régionaux) in 1972 which stated that these agencies would exercise their functions ‘dans le respect des attributions des départements et des communes’ (‘while respecting the functions of the departments and muncipalities’) and they could draw up regional plans only ‘… avec l’accord et pour le compte de collectivités locales, de groupements de collectivités locales, d’autres établissements publics ou de l’Etat’(‘… with the agreement and on behalf of the local authorities, groups of local authorities, and other state agencies’).8 There was little sign here of down-grading the department. Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, who succeeded Pompidou as president in 1974 wished to call a truce between the departmentalists and the regionalists. In a television appearance on 4 December 1975, he stated that there would be a period of observation lasting ten years at the end of which, and taking into account the administrative dimension of European integration, a choice would be made between the region and the department as the intermediate level of governance. Subsequently, however, it was the department which was favoured by figures close to the government. The 1976 Guichard Report Vivre Ensemble thought the department was the best level of territorial governance. In 1978, Christian Bonnet, Giscard’s Minister of the Interior, affirmed before the Senate during the presentation of a bill on the local authorities, that the government wished to ‘renforcer le rôle du département …institution d’expérience, consacrée par la tradition historique de nos Républiques … où se conjuguent au mieux la connaissance des réalités locales et la prise en considération des réalités nationales [et qui] constitue un échelon de responsabilité complémentaire bien plus que concurrent de celui des communes’ (‘strengthen the role of the department … an institution with a long experience, and consecrated by our republican historical tradition … and where best come together a knowledge of local reality and the taking into account of national realities and which is complementary rather than

The ‘Meso’ Level: The Region vs. the Département 113

a rival of the municipalities’). This was music to the ears of most of the senators who feared that the departments would be squeezed between the inter-municipal associations and the new regional agencies (the EPRs). François Mitterrand, when he became president in 1981, conveyed the same message to the presidents of the departmental councils at the their annual convention in Tours: ‘… le département est … devenu l’un des fondements de notre démocratie locale … Il constitue l’un des éléments importants de la grande oeuvre de décentralisation … Le département est une communauté enracinée dans notre histoire, à laquelle nos compatriotes sont profondément attachés et dont j’ai pu mesurer, pour avoir été l’un des vôtres [that is, a departmental council president], combien elle est vivante et irremplaçable’ (‘… the department has become one of the bases of our local democracy… It is one of the most important elements of the great project of decentralization… The department is a community rooted in our history, to which our fellow citizens are deeply attached; personally [having been myself president of a departmental council] I have been able to gauge to what extent it is living and irreplaceable’). There was little likelihood, therefore, that it would be abolished as part of the 1982 decentralization reforms despite the creation of the new regional councils. As another example of the ‘millefeuille institutionnel français’, it was, instead, retained alongside these. This is not surprising since probably the majority of the left (Socialists, Left Radicals, and Communists) who made up the first coalition government formed by President Mitterrand were convinced Jacobins and ‘souverainistes’. The Senate, too, whose members were elected from cantonal, that is, departmental constituencies, played an important role in ensuring that the interests of both the department and the municipality were protected against what they saw as the possible dangers coming from both regionalization and from the movement towards inter-municipal associations.9 The department after the 1982 decentralization reforms Some have argued that the department was the local authority which gained most from the decentralization reforms.10 The most important gain was perhaps the change in the respective roles of the prefect and the president of the departmental council (conseil général). Previously, it was the prefect who exercised a priori supervision (tutelle à priori) over the activities of the council and who was also its executive, determining its agenda, chairing its meetings and implementing its decisions. Following decentralization this role now passed to the council’s president. We could say that the council thereby entered into adulthood and was now a fully-fledged local authority alongside the municipalities. This entry into adulthood was also reflected in the ‘general clause’ in Article 23 of the Law of March 1982, according to which ‘the conseil général governs the affairs of the department’. This was directly modelled on the general competence attributed to the municipalities in the Law of 4 April 1884.11 At the same time, the

114 Subnational Government

department is seen as the ‘leader’ (‘chef de file’) in specific policy areas, as are the regions and municipalities in other policy areas. In the case of the department, this arena is social and infrastructure policy programmes. In practice, at least at the beginning of the decentralization reforms, it was thus the department which gained most, in comparison with the regions and the municipalities, in terms of the number and importance of the tasks transferred to it and the corresponding budget necessary to implement these tasks. Furthermore, the responsibilities of the department have continued to grow as new tasks were gradually added by subsequent legislation after 1982. This can seen from the growth of the departmental budget which went from 111 300 million francs in 1983 to 1999 200 million francs in 1992.12 A further dimension of this reinforcement of the department at the expense of the region was the fact that the departmental presidents came to the fore in the cantonal elections of 1982 and 1985 (the canton is the electoral constituency of the departmental councils), while the regions had to wait until 1986 before the first regional elections were held, and when these eventually did take place, they were held on the same day as the parliamentary elections, which somewhat obscured their significance. The responsibilities of the department The department has responsibility for four distinct policy areas (Table 5.1): social security and health care (action social et sanitaire); spatial and infrastructural planning (l’aménagement de l’espace et l’équipement); education, culture and heritage (l’éducation, la culture et le patrimoine); and economic development (les actions économiques). The first of these areas – social security and public health – has been its traditional role and this was confirmed by the legislation. The Law of 22 July 1983 gave them overall responsibility for ‘all benefits’ with the exception of aide sociale.13 The departmental councils have considerable flexibility in the allocation of these benefits. The council draws up a departmental framework within which they are administered. The central government lays down a minimum standard but departments may allocate sums above this minimum. Some services are shared between the department and the central state and the framework for these is drawn up by the departmental president and the prefect. The department may also authorize private individuals or companies to provide services for which it is responsible. Another heavy responsibility is roads and transport: the departments are responsible for 356 000 kilometres of highway and also for non-urban and rural school bus services. These responsibilities have been steadily growing. In 2004, about 15 000 national roads (routes nationales) were added to those already existing. They also share with the other levels of government responsibility for ports and waterways. From July 2006, the departments may also apply to take over responsibility for the maintenance and management of civil airports. The third important and expensive area under the control of the departments is

The ‘Meso’ Level: The Region vs. the Département 115 Table 5.1

The responsibilities of the département

General area of responsibility

Specific activities

Action social et sanitaire (social and health care)

• children’s social welfare (l’aide sociale à l’enfance) • assistance to the disabled (l’aide aux handicapés) • assistance to the elderly (l’aide aux personnes âgées) • professional and social inclusion (l’insertion sociale et professionnelle) • housing aid (l’aide au logement) • legal protection of young people (la protection judiciaire de la jeunesse) on an experimental basis for 5 years from 2004 in some départements) • health care protection for families and children (protection sanitaire de la famille et de l’enfance) • some responsibilities for disease prevention (e.g. vaccinations, TB)

Spatial and infrastructural planning (l’aménagement de l’espace et l’équipement)

• departmental roads (la voirie départementale), since 2004, about 15,000 km of national roads • non-urban bus and school-bus transport • creation, infrastructure and management of commercial and fishing ports and, from 2004, possibility of becoming owner of state autonomous ports within its territory • from 2006, may be a candidate to run civil airports • assistance programme for rural infrastructure (l’établissement d’un programme d’aide à l’équipement rural) • waterways and lakes (l’aménagement, l’entretien et l’exploitation des cours d’eau, lacs et plans d’eau domaniaux transférés aux départements) • environmental protection (l’élaboration et la mise en œuvre d’une politique de protection, de gestion et d’ouverture au public des espaces naturels sensibles, boisés ou non) Education, culture and heritage (l’éducation, la culture et le patrimoine) • physical infrastructure of lower secondary schools (collèges) • central lending libraries, departmental archives and museums • drawing up a departmental plan for teaching of the arts (schéma départemental de développement des enseignements artistiques)

116 Subnational Government Table 5.1

The responsibilities of the département – continued

General area of responsibility

Specific activities • on an experimental basis from 2004, and shared with the regions managing and resoring classified heritage sites which do not belong to the state

Economic development (les actions économiques)

• direct financial assistance to enterprises provided this does not exceed the upper limits of regional assistance and is complementary to the latter • indirect financial aids to enterprises

Source: La Documentation Française, La Vie Publique, http://www.viepublique.fr/decouverte_instit/instit/instit_3_3_0_q2.htm

education, culture and heritage (patrimoine). The main responsibility here is in the construction and maintenance of the physical infrastructure of lower secondary schools (the collèges). The department may also become involved with the regions in professional training programmes and (although this goes beyond what the law has laid down) it may finance some technical universities (IUT – Instituts Universitaires Technologiques). It is also responsible for libraries and departmental archives. Finally, the departments are involved in economic development programmes through some direct and indirect assistance to business, although these must be co-ordinated with the regions, which remain the principal actors in this domain. The functioning of the departmental council The present system of elections to the departmental councils was established in 1871 and has remained unchanged since then. Councillors have traditionally been local ‘notables’ and are elected every six years in a tworound majority ballot system, although half the councillors are renewed every three years. The electoral constituency is the ‘canton’, which can be regarded as a federation of the municipalities within its boundaries. The main traditional task of the departmental councillor was to represent the interests of the mayors (he was often a mayor himself) and their municipalities vis-à-vis the prefect who represented the central government. JeanPierre Worms has described the system of ‘complicity’ between ‘le préfet et ses notables’, since the prefects usually tried to accommodate these interests and the whole system functioned fairly smoothly and was generally not marked by partisan political conflicts.14 This system worked well in rural France where the vast number of small municipalities relied heavily on the services provided by the department and the field services under the control of the prefect.

The ‘Meso’ Level: The Region vs. the Département 117

The socio-economic and demographic changes – the rural exodus and increased urbanization which accompanied it – outlined in an earlier chapter, however, made the system less relevant to the larger towns and cities where the mayors could have direct access to the state’s field services or even to the central state itself without the intermediary of the departmental council or even of the prefect. As we shall see later in this book, the system of cumul des mandats meant that many of these big city mayors were also powerful national politicians as well. The 1960s also saw the arrival into the councils of a new generation of younger, urbanized councillors who were less ready to slot into the traditional roles. Another development, which took place during the Fifth Republic when the left was in opposition for a long period of time (from 1958 until 1981), was the increase of the influence of political parties in the departmental councils (in 1979 there were left-wing majorities in 46 out of 95 departmental councils in mainland France), since the left-wing councillors found it difficult to enter into a relationship of complicity with the prefect who was seen more as the representative of the right-wing government than of the locality. All this set the scene for the significant changes that occurred with the decentralization reforms, of which the most important for the departments was the transfer of executive authority from the prefect to the departmental president. The president of the departmental council The departmental president, like the mayors in their municipalities, is elected by an absolute majority of the council over two rounds of voting and by a simple majority if an absolute majority is not reached in the first two rounds. The main function of the president is to prepare the agenda of the council meetings and to implement the decisions arrived at, a function previously exercised by the prefect. He also prepares the budget and is held accountable for the council’s expenditure. The president is alone the director of the departmental administration and is responsible for recruiting and managing its staff. Like the mayor, he has some police powers but these are much less extensive than the mayor’s. The president appoints a bureau and a cabinet who assist him in the realization of these tasks.

The region In an earlier chapter, we have outlined how a number of different kinds of regionalist movement existed in France at the end of the 19th century. These were mainly concerned either with cultural preservation of endangered regional languages or cultures or with programmes of economic development. Some were nostalgic yearnings for the lost France of the Ancien Régime. It is interesting that there were many attempts during the first years of the 20th century to introduce legislation in the National Assembly to set up regional councils.15 In 1910, Prime Minister Aristide Briand, thought it

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necessary to ‘superposer à l’organisation départementale une organisation régionale, en groupant les départements en raison de l’affinité de leurs intérêts, notamment dans le domaine économique’16 (‘to impose on the departmental system a regional one, by bringing together departments on the basis of the closeness of their interests, especially in economic matters’). It is true that none of these initiatives came to fruition and the departmental and municipal system remained intact, but they do illustrate the continuing existence of a Girondin subcurrent of French political thought and tradition. During the period of the Third Republic, the French state, like states elsewhere in the developed world, began to take on an increasing number of tasks. Since the end of the 19th century, it was already heavily involved in education which it had taken over from the Catholic religious orders that it had expelled through anti-clerical legislation. It also became increasingly involved in ‘services publics industriels et commerciaux’ (‘industrial and commercial public services’) so that over time it was supplying a number of these services such as transport, gas, electricity and telecommunications. The growing complexity of the state administration made it clear that the simple Jacobin model of the state and the prefectoral system were not totally adequate to administering this complexity. It was felt that the state was excessively centralized and at least some measures of decentralization and regionalization were appropriate. In the end, though, there was little attempt at political decentralization and regionalization but there were some attempts at administrative ‘deconcentration’.17 It is necessary to distinguish between the moderate regionalism of the kind advocated by Briand and the political elites of the Third Republic and the more radical brand which was advocated by some of the elites in the regions. These groups, numerically quite small and probably without widespread popular support, were the ideological descendants of the reactionaries and right-wing regionalists of the 19th century. They were opposed to the nation-state and suspicious of liberal democracy, parliamentarianism and industrial capitalism. They accused these aspects of ‘modernity’ of destroying the ‘natural’ organic communities of the regions by levelling down and breaking up traditional hierarchies of social relationships. Some of these regionalist movements evolved into nationalist movements as in Brittany, which developed a Breton nationalist movement inspired by the Irish struggle for independence.18 Some of their members even shifted very far to the right and were sympathetic to the various fascist and authoritarian movements in Europe during this period, although the majority of regionalists did not go this far. Still, during the Occupation at the time of the Second World War, some Flemish, Breton and Corsican regionalists acted on these convictions and became collaborators with the occupants, German in Brittany and French Flanders and Italian in Corsica.19 Several of these collaborators were executed after the war, and their activities served to discredit political regionalism for many years. This did not mean

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the end of regionalism, which survived in its geographical, cultural and economic forms to re-emerge after the war. Regionalism and regionalization during the ‘Trente Glorieuses’ The period following the Second World War was one of reconstruction and rebuilding the political and economic foundations of the French nationstate. The economic expansion and the growth of the welfare state during the Trente Glorieuses was driven from the centre, Paris, and managed by the administrative elites formed by the École Nationale d’Administration, founded by De Gaulle in 1945, and the école Polytechnique, founded during the Revolution in 1794 but upgraded by Napoleon in 1805. The elites who emerged from these grandes écoles, known as énarques and polytechniciens, embodied the spirit and values of the one and indivisible Republic and were destined to shape French public policy and administration for most of the post-war period. What is important is that they saw the reconstruction of France in the post-war period as a national goal and everything else – economic development, regional or urban policy – had to fit into this perspective. The motto of the Polytechnique was: ‘pour la Patrie, les sciences et la gloire’. This national perspective was embodied in the system of planning – le Plan national – devised by Jean Monnet. It soon became clear that the traditional system of territorial governance based on the departments and the municipalities was inadequate to respond to the administrative and co-ordination problems thrown up by this expansion. As government ministries expanded, they created new administrative boundaries, but these rarely coincided with each other. It became clear that a new devolved level of administration, situated between the department and municipality, on the one hand, and the central state, on the other, was necessary. This gave a new impetus to the return of the region but conceived primarily if not exclusively from an administrative perspective. This is what has been called ‘regionalization’,20 understood as a top-down approach by the central state towards the regions, which, in turn, are conceived as geographical or economic planning areas. In several cases, such as in Corsica, this top-down planning approach did not even involve the local elites or the latter simply had a token presence.21 Thus ‘regionalization’, in this sense, was very far removed from ‘regionalism’ as defined above, which was a bottom-up, regionally-based mobilization by regional elites to defend and promote their own region. The subsequent history of the region in post-war France is the history of the dialectical relationship between regionalization and regionalism. The 1960s: from ‘functional regionalism’ to ‘political regionalism’ It was not long before there were responses to this model of centralized planning and development from within the regions and from commentators sympathetic to the regional cause. We already mentioned in a previous

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chapter the book by Jean-François Gravier, Paris et le désert français.22 Published in 1947 which anticipated many of the planning problems of the welfare state period. But, more widely, the very success of post-war planning and the economic boom which accompanied it drew attention to the disparities which Gravier was pointing out. On the one hand, some parts of France (roughly those found north of an imaginary line which could be drawn between Brest and Marseilles) were becoming highly prosperous. On the other hand, those regions beneath this line did not seem to benefit from the new-found prosperity. This provoked the emergence of ‘regional development coalitions’ in regions such as Brittany and Corsica. These development coalitions, at least at the beginning, were not overtly political but brought together a wide range of actors from several different political families, ranging from Jacobin centralists of the right and left to radical regionalists. These were united under the banner of regional economic development for their region and eschewed, for the moment, political demands such as greater autonomy, even if some members of the coalition might wish for this. The most important of these coalitions was the Breton CELIB (Comité d’étude et de liaison des intérêts bretons), created in 1950.23 The CELIB sought and achieved a Programme d’Action Régionale (PAR) in 1952, which was, in effect, a regionalization of the national plan. This Breton success was imitated in other French regions, notably Corsica, the most deprived of the regions in European France where the PAR involved the development of mass tourism and agriculture. The French government responded to these initiatives by creating regional comités d’expansion économique.24 These regional development coalitions, which flourished in the 1950s, disintegrated in the 1960s as the more radical regionalist groups began to intensify demands for institutional change in the form of more political autonomy for the regions. The Jacobin elements of the coalitions – the Left Radicals, the Communists, and the traditional Socialists – resisted this, faithful to the institutional system inherited from the Revolution. In Brittany, the CELIB’s collaboration with the central state was dubbed ‘la trahison des notables’ (‘the betrayal by the notables’) by more radical regionalists who espoused political positions which included separatist nationalism as well as violence as a means of obtaining this aim. In Corsica, the equivalent of the CELIB was the ‘Mouvement du 29 novembre’.25 and it too followed the same pattern of increasing radicalization of the problem, especially after the massive arrival of pieds noirs (as the European settlers in North Africa were called), following Algerian independence in 1962, and the granting of those Corsican lands, which had been ear-marked for agricultural development under the old PAR, to some of these settlers. This was the direct cause of the growth on the island of political violence, which has continued to this day.26 Nevertheless, despite these dangers of radicalization, the governments of the Fourth Republic proceeded with the programme of regionalization. In

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1955, the commissaire adjoint of the national Plan, M. Vergeot, set up a committee to trace out the boundaries of a new regional organization of French territory from the perspective of planning and economic development.27 This was not an easy task as there were several different ways in which this could be done: a single uniform model similar to that adopted by the départements; a variegated model of regions centred on a major town or city; or the 47 ‘grands départements’ that had been proposed by Michel Debré in 1947. These different projects proposed between ten large regions and 30 or more smaller ones but the average was between 18 and 25. The number was politically important and the left-wing opposition opted for the smaller number of large regions, which would have a stronger basis vis-à-vis the central state and the right-wing majority who wanted the larger number of small regions.28 In the end, the committee chose the middle-range number of 22 régions de programme.29 Interestingly, 15 of the new regional divisions were given the names of provinces of the Ancien Régime, although their boundaries rarely coincided with these. Henceforth, for better or worse, and whether they were acceptable to traditional regionalists as in Brittany, the Basque Country or Corsica, these were the administrative boundaries of the region in France.30 At this stage, though, the region was little more than an inter-departmental committee for regional planning presided over by a co-ordinating prefect. Regionalization in the 1960s and 1970s Although French regionalization did not fully satisfy the demands of the majority of political regionalists, the story of the regions during this period is one of a continuous strengthening of their juridical status. In 1960, they were granted a new juridical statute as circonscriptions d’action régionale with a co-ordinating prefect who was the prefect of the most important department.31 In 1964, he became the ‘regional prefect’ but the region was not elevated to the status either of an établissement public and still less of a collectivité territoriale, the latter being the constitutional status of the departments and municipalities. At this stage, the regional prefect disposed of a minimal staff, and his main functions were to co-ordinate his colleagues in the other prefectures of the region with a view to articulating a regional dimension of the national plan within the framework of the national budget. The regional prefect reported directly to the prime minister. The Commission de Développement économique et régional (the CODER) was created in 1964 at the same time as the regional prefect and may be considered the successor of the comités d’expansion économique of the 1950s. The CODERs were regional consultative bodies, numbering between 20 and 50 members, a quarter of whom were departmental councillors, half were representatives of different economic sectors and the trade unions, and the remaining quarter were qualified persons from civil society appointed by the prime minister. The CODERs were entirely under the

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control of the regional prefect who chaired their meetings and fixed their agendas. This led to some disillusionment among their members who had the feeling they were simply rubber-stamping decisions already made by the prefect.32 Nevertheless, despite these limitations, the region was slowly emerging as a key level of decision-making in certain policy sectors, especially economic development and planning, even if the decisions were still being taken by the regional prefect on behalf of the central government, a good example of regionalization as opposed to regionalism! We have already noted in a previous chapter how, in 1969, De Gaulle held a referendum which would have dramatically changed the status of the French regions, but that this failed for reasons less to do with the regional idea itself than with the position of the Senate. De Gaulle had instructed one of his ministers, Jean-Marcel Jeanneney, to prepare a bill to strengthen the regions. This sought to transform the CODERs into fullyfledged collectivités territoriales with the same juridical status as the departments and municipalities. This is not say that the new regional bodies would have constituted a level of democratic regional government like these other two local authorities. On the contrary, their functions would have been less wide and the regional council would not have been directly elected but would be appointed in the same way as the CODER. It would, however, have the capacity to take decisions and would thus have had a certain independence from the regional prefect. When the issue was put to a referendum the result was a decisive NO vote by 53.17 per cent of those voting and 41.67 per cent of the electorate. The regional project was put on the back burner – for the moment. The regional idea was taken up again but in a less ambitious way by De Gaulle’s successor President Georges Pompidou, his former prime minister, who declared that his aim was to: ‘créer sans détruire, rénover en partant de ce qui est en commençant par la base, au lieu de prétendre imposer des structures technocratiques à nos structures traditionnelles’ (‘create without destroying, renew by starting from what already exists and starting from the base, instead of imposing [new] technocratic structures onto those which are traditional’). In 1972, Pompidou announced a new law33 upgrading the region but only to the level of an établissement public régional (EPR) – rather than that of a collectivité territoriale, with fewer powers and similar to the old CODER. The EPR had three institutions: a regional council (conseil régional), a regional prefect and a consultative economic and social committee (CES – comité économique et social). The regional council was indirectly elected and was made up of national and local politicians. The council could take decisions but it was the regional prefect, the real powerholder in the region, who was the region’s executive, who decided the agenda of the council’s meetings, and who implemented its decisions as well as controlling the budget. In effect, the EPR was a toothless body almost entirely dependent on the prefect and on the administrative

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services of the state which were also controlled by him. In regions where the right were the majority, this situation was accepted with good grace. In those regions with a left-wing majority, the regional council tried to mount opposition to the prefect. But, in the end, it was usually the prefect who prevailed. The EPRs retained this form throughout the 1970s and changed little when Valéry Giscard d’Estaing was elected president in 1974. This brief survey shows that, while French political and administrative elites were aware of the misfit between the socio-economic changes and challenges that had occurred after the Second World War and the traditional politico-administrative institutions which dated from the 19th century, they were unwilling to take radical action to reform them. Instead, the departments (and the 36 000 municipalities) were retained because of the strong Jacobin lobby and tradition in political life. De Gaulle paid the price of failure in the botched referendum of 1969 and the reforms that did occur after this were hesitant and inadequate. More radical change would have to wait until the 1982 decentralization reforms. The region in the 1982 decentralization reforms In chapter three we touched briefly on the question of why the socialists became convinced of the necessity of decentralization in the 1960s. Here we will examine in some more detail its conversion to regionalism. It was within a context of social and ideological conflict that, during the 1960s and 1970s, French socialism developed its own regional theory. Finding itself in opposition for a long period of time (1958–1981), the left realized that the regional question was another stick with which it could beat successive right-wing governments. Furthermore, at the end of the 1960’s it had a political programme which was either empty of content or purely negative being inspired by an old-fashioned Marxism. This vacuum could be filled by the ideas of the ‘new left’ and the ‘new social movements’.34 But the left had generally remained faithful to the Jacobin ideal of the centralized unitary state which it saw as essential to achieving the goals of equality and justice right across the French territory. Furthermore, since the 19th century, it had been suspicious of the political ideology of regionalism which it had associated with the right and, during the Second World War, the extreme right. But now, as a result of this revamping of its political ideology, it began to modify its former Jacobinism and to take into account the demands being made by the regionalists. This was helped by the fact that the latter, also at odds with the Gaullist regime, were undergoing a parallel change, abandoning their traditional conservatism and adopting elements of socialist and even Marxist ideology.35 This facilitated a meeting of minds with the traditional left, and sections of the two traditions began to collaborate. Furthermore, several important figures within the regionalist movements, such as Michel Phlipponeau and Louis Le Pensec from Brittany,

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Jean-Pierre Destrade from the French Basque Country and Charles Santoni from Corsica, actually joined the Socialist Party, thus helping to raise the consciousness of the latter with regard to the regional problem. Another important entry into the party was the PSU leader Michel Rocard, who had been a fervent advocate of a ‘decolonization’ of the regions.36 Finally, mention should also be made of Gaston Defferre, big city mayor of Marseille and Minister of the Interior and of Decentralization in the first Mitterrand government, who had his own brand of regionalism (actually a kind of big city or ‘metropolitan’ regionalism avant le mot) and who had contacts with French federalist movements. It should be noted, however, that just as there were several kinds of regionalism within the regionalist movements, so, too, there were several positions with regard to the regional problem within the left. The Parti Communiste Français (PCF), the Parti Socialiste (PS) and the Parti Socialiste Unifié (PSU) all adopted significantly different approaches.37 Within the PS, there co-existed the traditional Jacobinism of groups such as the Centre of Socialist Studies, Research and Education (CERES – Centre d’étude, de recherche et d’éducation socialiste), founded led by Jean-Pierre Chevènement, the moderate regionalism of individuals such as Gaston Defferre and the Prime Minister Pierre Mauroy, and the more radical regionalism of Le Pensec and Santoni. The diversity of opinions both within the left and within the regionalist movements helps to explain apparent inconsistencies in the regionalist positions finally adopted by the left, and in particular by the socialists, and the divisions and incomprehension among the regionalists with regard to these positions. Despite their internal differences, the PS managed to agree on a basic policy toward the regional question. This may be found in several positions adopted in the period preceding the presidential elections of May 1981. Thus regionalism was part of a wider programme to restructure French society through autogestion and political decentralization, as stated in one of the theses on autogestion adopted by the PS national convention in June 1975: Les régions doivent devenir des collectivités démocratiques avec leurs assemblées élues au suffrage universel, leurs exécutifs et leurs propres services techniques et administratifs. Certaines régions constituent des pays de minorité ethnique et leur identité sera forte. Les principes qui soustendront leur organisation sont de portée générale et constituent un des aspects du droit à la différence (‘The regions must become democratic bodies whose councils are elected by universal suffrage and with their own executives and technical and administrative services. Some regions also constitute ethnic minorities with strong identities. The principles underlying their [political] organization are of general relevance and are one aspect of the right to difference’).

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This basic position may also be found in the Socialist Manifesto, drawn up at the extraordinary Congress of the PS held in Créteil on 24 January 1981, for the forthcoming presidential elections.38 The Manifesto was composed of a preamble followed by the ‘110 Propositions du candidat Mitterrand’ (110 Proposals of the candidate Mitterrand). The preamble stated that ‘ce qui constitue peut-être le point central de notre action, car il conditionne tous les autres, que l’on appellera, selon l’objet, décentralisation, responsabilité à la base, organisation des contre-pouvoirs, autogestion’ (‘the basic principle underlying our activities, since it conditions all the others, is what we may call, depending on the area being addressed: decentralization, accountability to the base, the organization of countervailing powers, autonomy’). This was based on a reassessment of the role of centralization in building the French nation: ‘si le pouvoir central a servi, naguère, l’unité nationale, aujourd’hui il lui nuit’ (‘even if the centralized state achieved national unity in the past, today it damages this unity’). This repeated the same point made by De Gaulle 13 years previously in his 1968 speech in Lyon. The socialists remained Jacobins in the sense that they wished to preserve national unity (‘nous proclamons notre attachement irréductible à la patrie’) but they considered that such unity could now be achieved, not by denying that diversity exists, as traditional Jacobinism had done, but by a democratic respect for this diversity. This meant recognizing the rights of cultural and linguistic minorities, especially the fundamental ‘droit à la différence’ (‘right to difference’). This might be called a ‘pluralistic Jacobinism’ rather than the traditional monistic Jacobinism of the past. From this basic principle would follow several concrete measures concerning the regions and their populations. Some of these were outlined in the 110 Propositions, especially proposals 54–59. Proposal 54 promised a general programme of decentralization, a special statute (Statut Particulier) for Corsica and the unification of the two departments of the French Basque Country. This addressed some of the regionalist demands for a reorganization of France’s administrative structures. Proposal 56 dealt with the cultural question: ‘La promotion des identités régionales sera encouragée, les langues et cultures minoritaires respectées et enseignées’ (‘The promotion of regional identities will be encouraged and minority cultures will be respected and taught [in the educational system]’). These promises were repeated in speeches made by Mitterrand during the presidential campaign as when he stated, in a speech at Lorient, Brittany: ‘C’est blesser un peuple au plus profond de lui-même que de l’atteindre dans sa culture et sa langue’ (‘A people is wounded at its very core when its culture and language are not respected’).39 Note here Mitterrand’s use of the word ‘people’, which refers to groups such as the Bretons and Corsicans. This would later become a thorny issue when the French Constitutional Court ruled that the term, when applied to the Corsicans – ‘le peuple corse’ – was unconstitutional and that, in France, ‘il n’y a qu’un peuple, le peuple français et qu’une

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langue, la langue française’ (‘there is only one people, the French people, and only one language, the French language’).40 Despite this electoral rhetoric, the new government did not keep all the promises it had made before the election. For example, the French Basque Country was not united into a single department, and the promise to promote the teaching of minority languages for example at university level was not fully implemented. Rather, the regional dimension of the reforms was down-played and more emphasis given to decentralizing political power and functions to the departments and municipalities. One of the early criticisms of the reforms was that they did little more than confirm what was already the practice of the domination of local politics by the notables and, especially, of the big cities.41 But these early criticisms were somewhat wide of the mark and underestimated the real changes that were being ushered in by the reforms.42 Although there was some justification in the argument that it was mainly the local notables who were the ‘winners’, the region was also a ‘winner’ in the sense that its juridical status, functions and position within the politico-administrative system were all upgraded and reinforced, and this reinforcement would continue for the next couple of decades. Although the original aims of the reformers were not fully realized, this did not mean that significant change did not occur. This did occur, even if in ways unintended by the reformers, but, in the case of the regions, at least some of the original aims were met. The upgrading of the region to the rank of ‘collectivité territoriale’ One of the most important innovations of the 1982 decentralization reforms was to give the region, for the first time, the same juridical status as the departments and municipalities.43 There was still no recognition of this status in the constitution, but this was eventually granted with the 2003 revision of Article 72 which now enumerates the regions alongside the traditional collectivités territoriales. Furthermore, like the other local authorities, the new regions would be governed by directly elected councils thus gaining a political legitimacy hitherto denied them. But the new bodies got off to an inauspicious start since the first regional elections were postponed by the socialist government until 1986 and their significance was somewhat obscured by the fact that they were held on the same day as the parliamentary elections. This was pure political manipulation since the government feared, with good reason, that the right-wing opposition would use the new regional councils as a platform from which to attack them, a fear fully justified since the right won an overwhelming majority of councils in these first elections. But, despite this procrastination, it was clear that the regions had now entered their legal majority or, at least, had left the position of childhood to enter that of adolescence. Over the next 20 years, they would grow into something like adulthood.

The ‘Meso’ Level: The Region vs. the Département 127 Table 5.2

The responsibilities of the region

Economic development

• co-ordinates the economic planning activities of the other local authorities (but in a non-hierarchical manner); • provides economic assistance to enterprises and co-operates with other local authorities who wish to do so; • draws up, in collaboration with the other local authorities, the regional scheme of economic development (schéma régional de développement économique).

Territorial planning (L’aménagement du territoire et la planification)

• is consulted by the state in drawing up a national planning sustainable development policy; • draws up a regional planning and sustainable development policy (schéma régional d’aménagement et de développement du territoire – SRADT); • is a partner with the state in the State-Region Planning Contracts (Contrats de Plan État-Région – CPER) which implement the orientations of the SRADT; • responsible for regional civil airports; • responsible for non-autonomous ports belonging to the state; • drawing up a regional transport plan.

Education, professional training and culture

• lycées, special schools (établissements d’éducation spéciale) and maritime colleges (lycées professionnels maritimes); • responsible for formulation of training policy (not simply its implementation); • regional museums and archives (but the latter may be confided to the departments); • overall inventory of cultural heritage (l’inventaire général du patrimoine culturel) but which may be confided to other local authorities; • organization and financing of first stage of professional art education (cycle d’enseignement artistique professionnel initial).

Health

• with the agreement of the state, the regions, like other local authorities may intervene in certain health matters such as vaccinations, treatment of tuberculosis, leprosy, AIDS, and sexually transmitted diseases; • on an experimental basis may participate in the financing and building of health-care facilities.

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As was the case with the departments, part of its growth into adulthood meant that the region could now take its own decisions and the regional prefect would no longer act as its guardian, preparing and executing these. He would no longer exercise supervision (tutelle a priori) over it nor be its executive. This latter role would now fall to the leader of the council, the regional president.44 In order to assist the president, the council elects a commission permanente composed of the president and vice-presidents, and other members the council might elect, as well as a bureau, consisting of the president and vice-presidents. There is also an Economic and Social Council (CES – Conseil économique et social) whose task is to advise the council on a defined range of issues.45 Besides strengthening its constitutional and organizational status, the region also became responsible for a wider range of functions, concerned with ‘development’ understood in a wide sense to include economic, social and cultural development (see Table 5.2). The primary mission of the region is to promote regional economic development but, as the list given in this Table illustrates, this is interpreted in an increasingly broad manner. The region has strengthened the functions allocated to it in 1982 and has gradually accumulated new ones. As recently as 2004, for example, it gained new powers in the field of health. It may also be noted that several of these powers are exercised in conjunction with other local authorities and with the central state. The region has, however, primary responsibility for these in line with the model of assigning ‘blocs of competences’ to different levels. The planning contracts between the state and the region (CPERs) At the centre of the new regional system of governance in France are the planning contracts drawn up between the regions and the central state – the CPERs (Contrats de Plan État-Région). It is the contractual system, in vigour since 1984, which is perhaps the most striking indicator of the paradigm shift that has occurred in the French state and how it relates to its territory. During the Trente Glorieuses, national planning – le Plan National – was, as we have noted, carried out in a top-down manner but had ceased to be either appropriate or effective by the 1980s. It was criticized as being excessively rigid and centralized but also for failing to achieve the objectives it was meant to achieve. The creation of the regions in 1982 and the transfer of planning powers to them meant the beginning of the end of the system. At first, the regions simply drew up their regional plans and these were co-ordinated by the central state to ensure that they were compatible with each other and with national planning strategies. Then, under the direction of Prime Minister Michel Rocard, appeared the idea of state-region contracts, which were meant to be co-ordinated with the national plan. Eventually, in 1993, the national plans were faded out altogether with the non-adoption of the 11th National Plan, despite this having been already drawn up. In 1994, the regional plans which had

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existed alongside the CPERs were suppressed. Henceforth, French planning would take place at the regional level in the form of the CPERs. This represents an important change in the way in which French public policy is made. Previously, according to its public law tradition, policy was decided through legislation. In fact, we already saw how this approach was adopted for the 1982 decentralization reforms. The national plans, too, had been adopted by acts of parliament, that is, by a legislative process. Although this approach may have the advantage of giving the policies adopted a strong democratic legitimacy it has the disadvantage of being slow and cumbersome and ill-suited to the complexity and rapid changes of contemporary social and economic life. The new system of the CPERs avoids this by being based on a contractual process without the need to pass through parliament for approval. Furthermore, the contractual process is based on the notion of partnership – between the state and the region, which co-finance the agreed plan. It is also an application of the principle of subsidiarity, as decisions are taken at a level nearer to the citizen. The contractual approach thus signals, in principle at least, the end of the traditional system of hierarchical government, in which the central state commands and the sub-national authorities obey. Instead, they are conceived as partners working together towards common goals and each contributing financially to obtain these goals. The contractual approach has been extended to other domains. For example, the regions may now sign contracts with the pays and the communautés d’agglomération discussed in the previous chapter. This is the theory. How has it worked in practice? In preparation for drawing up the contract, both the state, in the person of the regional prefect, and the regional council draw up two separate strategic documents: the ‘State strategy in the Region’ (PASER – Plan d’action stratégique de l’État en région) drawn up by the prefect, and the ‘Regional outline document of territorial planning’ (SRADT – Schéma régional d’aménagement du territoire) drawn of by the region. The PASER is the result of a series of consultations and debate involving the prefect, his administrative staff and a range of other actors from the universities, business associations and trade unions. The PASER must also be approved by ministers in Paris to ensure that it does not conflict with their strategic priorities. The SRADT is drawn up by the council with the help of the region’s CES. The DIACT (Délégation interministérielle à l’aménagement et la compétitivité des territoires – formerly the DATAR which was renamed in 2005) is also involved in these preparations. The Contrat de Plan État-Région emerges out of these processes and is signed by the regional president on behalf of the council and by the regional prefect on behalf of the state. By bringing planning down to this level, and by involving regionallybased actors, the resulting plan is meant to reflect more accurately the socioeconomic situation and needs of the regional area than was the case with the previous system of centralized planning. The implementation of the contract

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is overseen by a comité regional de pilotage, whose members include representatives of the two partners, from the regions and from the state. The DIACT plays a co-ordinating role between the regions and the state as well between both these groups and the prime minister who has to make the final decision on the funding available.46 The European Union dimension An important feature of the regional contract system in recent years has been the attempt to co-ordinate the CPERs and the European structural funds.47 In practice, however, this has been little more than aligning the time-scale of the two processes – to seven years for each. The rules of engagement between the EU and those states and local authorities in receipt of EU funding are very different from those that govern stateregional relations in France. In the former, the EU can recall funding that is not spent by a member state and transfer it to another (known in financial jargon as ‘fungibility’), while this is very difficult in the French case. Furthermore, there is very little co-funding ERDF-CPER of particular projects (it is estimated to be only about one-sixth of all CPER programmes), as many of the policy areas covered by the CPER and not eligible for funding under ERDF objectives (for example, transport is not included in Objective 2 funding programmes). At least with regard to funding issues, ‘Europe’ remains more an inspiration and stimulant than a real partner in most cases. At the time of writing (2006), however, the European Commission is waiting for the submissions from the member states, and it is expected that the outcome of this consultation will, in the French case, give greater attention to co-ordination between the ERDF and the CPERs.48 We are now in the fourth ‘generation’ of CPERs (1984–1988; 1989–1993; 1994–1999; and 2000–2006). Over this period, there has been a steady evolution in the nature of the plans, besides the fundamental change in their role in the planning process mentioned above.49 First, there has been a modification in the content of the plans. The first generation (1984–1988) emphasized heavy infrastructural development (roads, motorways, etc.) as well as industrial restructuring. Training also absorbed an important percentage (10%) of the budget. An example of an outcome from the first generation plan was the industrial transformation of the steel manufacturing complex of Decazeville, where steel-making ceased in 1987 and where the CPER assisted in the conversion of the area to other economic activities. In subsequent plans there was a growing diversity to include policy areas such as urban policy, culture, rural development, justice, higher education and research. Furthermore, sub-regional territorial development policy, known as the ‘volet territorial’ (‘territorial stream’ of funding), involving the new inter-municipal groupings has been increasingly incorporated in the form of contracts between the region and the pays and the communautés d’agglomération. Second, the amount of funds involved in the CPERs has

The ‘Meso’ Level: The Region vs. the Département 131 Table 5.3 Evolution of the amount of contracted funding for CPERs (billions of euros) (excluding the DOM) 1984–1988 1988–1993 1994–1999 2000–2006

10.65 15.5 23.08 33.6

Source: DATAR.

Table 5.4 Evolution of the share of the state and the region in funding of CPERs (excluding the DOM) CPER 1984–1988 1988–1993 1994–1999 2000–2006

The state’s share 60 % 55.4 % 52.1 % 49.5 %

The regions’ share 40 % 44.6 % 47.9 % 50.5 %

Source: DATAR.

increased significantly. The total amount involved has tripled between the first generation and the present: from 10.6 billion euros in 1984–1988 to 33.6 billion euros in 2000–20006 Table 5.3). While the contribution of both partners has increased during this period, that of the region has increased to a much greater extent, with the region’s contribution multiplying by four, compared to that of the state which has multiplied by 2.6. As Table 5.4 shows, the region’s contribution has increased from less than half to just over half. The third significant development has been the progressive lengthening of the time period that the CPERs cover, which initially ran for a period of five years to correspond with national planning but, following the abandonment of the latter, has now been extended to seven years. This change was also made to align the CPERs planning timetable with the European regional planning process. The 2004 Senate Report on the CPERs provides a useful summary of the pluses and minuses of the contractual system so far.50 There have been undoubted successes. First, the system has strengthened the regions by making them fully-fledged partners of the state. This has helped them to carry out the tasks assigned to them and strengthens their position vis-à-vis the central state. Second, the system has had a ‘spring-board’ effect in the mobilization of resources for large-scale territorial development and permitted the completion of a number of major projects such as transport infrastructure and also areas such as research and higher education. Third,

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the planning system has led to a certain amount of sharing of skills and expertise between the state and territorial administrations which might not otherwise have happened. But there have also been many criticisms. First, the CPERs have tried to cover too many policy areas, and this has led to complexity, duplication and disappointment when the objectives set are not achieved (as is often the case). This is partly the fault of the regions themselves who adopt a wide range of objectives in the (vain) hope of receiving matching state funding. Second, there is a lack of transparency and a consequent lessening of responsibility on the part of the different actors involved. This is a result of the fact that, although there are only two principal partners in the CPERs, many others may be involved – the other local authorities, the pays and the communautés d’agglomération, and the European Union. All this makes it difficult for the ordinary citizen to understand what is going on. Third, the ‘partnership’ between state and region is not one of equals but is asymmetrical in the sense that the state is the stronger of the two and tends to impose its views. Fourth, the implementation of the plan is unpredictable because of the lack of serious statistical studies in their preparation, and the real costs involved are frequently miscalculated. Finally, and most importantly, has been the failure of the state to respect its financial commitments because of its own precarious financial situation.51 To some extent, this is a result of the fact that the budgeting process of the state is annual, while that of the CPERs is pluri-annual. It is also a consequence of the climate of fiscal rectitude prevalent today, which means that the state must be continually adjusting its fiscal policies. Sometimes, as in 2003, the state has reduced its own financial commitment by as much as 15 per cent less than originally promised, which, of course, has serious consequences for the regions and other local authorities who are then forced to pick up the state’s tab in order to complete projects already begun on the basis of the contract. While the Senate report advocates retaining the contractual system, it puts forward a number of proposals to improve it in the light of these criticisms. First, there should be a guarantee that the state will honour its funding commitments and make this more transparent. Second, there should be an increase of fungibility (i.e. the ability to vire across budget headings to achieve similar objectives) of the state’s contribution so as to allow the regional prefect to re-allocate funds ear-marked for other projects but which are not used by them. Finally, there needs to be better evaluation of the contracts. Regional asymmetry A final remark concerning the development of the region as a level of territorial governance in France is that there is a great difference in the institutional capacity in the different French regions. Leaving aside the Paris

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region of Ile-de-France, which is in a category of its own, there are strong regions, such as Rhône-Alpes and Brittany, in the sense that they possess a strong institutional capacity and have succeeded in imposing themselves vis-à-vis the central state and other local authorities such as the departments and even large cities such as Lyon or Rennes. These regions will successfully complete their CPERs in time and will fulfil many of the objectives of these plans.52 Other regions, however, such as LanguedocRoussillon or Corsica, have much greater difficulty in doing so. There are several reasons for these disparities. The ‘stronger’ regions sometimes have a long-established cultural identity which serves as a binding force and helps to mobilize regional development coalitions. This is certainly the case in Brittany where there is an old established tradition going back to the 1950s, rooted in the communitarian traditions of Catholic social teaching. Languedoc-Roussillon, on the other hand, is deeply divided politically (between the left and right/extreme right), between the region and the departments and towns, and even between the two minority language groups, Occitan and Catalan who are usually at loggerheads with each other. Corsica, too, has a long history of internal conflict and division which is an obstacle to its affirmation as a coherent region.53 This is not the case with Rhône-Alpes, but the latter fulfils another important condition, which is that it already had a high level of socio-economic development, centred on areas such as the Rhône valley and the high-tech industrial complex around Grenoble. The regional council could successfully build on these. To some extent, the decentralization reforms have finally recognized the asymmetry that exists in France by giving some regions, such as Corsica as well as the DOM-TOM, a special status which recognizes their specificity.54 The regions in French public opinion Much of what we have been describing – the drawing up and implementation of CPERs – takes place above the heads of the general public who are largely unaware of what is happening. This should not surprise us, as it is the case in most modern states with their complex systems of administration and public finances. Nevertheless, despite this lack of familiarity, it seems that, according to successive opinion polls, the French public view the regions favourably. A poll carried out in October 2002 indicated that large majorities were in favour of the region being given responsibility for a wide range of areas: tackling petty crime (86%); environmental protection (93%); tackling unemployment (86%); training (89%); hospital management (84%); housing (88%); territorial development (85%); tackling social exclusion (77%); setting the school curriculum (la définition des programmes scolaires) (69%); managing and developing cultural heritage (patrimoine) (84%); and adapting national law to take into account regional specificity (70%).55 More French people have confidence in the future of the region

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(63% according to one survey) than in the state (43%). The same survey indicates that 43 per cent of French people consider that, in the future, the region will have more influence on daily life than Europe or even the French state.56 This does not mean that the region will supplant existing institutions such as the department and the municipality as the favoured level of subnational governance. On the contrary, the opinion poll cited above showed that there is still a strong attachment to both these levels and in particular to the municipality. But the department, too, is unlikely to disappear in the eyes of public opinion.

Conclusions What we have shown in this analysis of the two meso-levels of governance in France is that both the department and the region are now firmly established in the politico-administrative landscape of the country. At the start of the decentralization reforms in 1982, the department was definitely the ‘winner’ in terms of the powers allocated to it and the financial attribution to exercise these powers. Furthermore, at that time, the majority of the political class of both left and right were firm departmentalists and wedded to the notion of the unity and indivisibility of the Republic, of which the department and the accompanying prefectoral system were the symbols. The region, on the other hand, was more like a poor cousin, treated with some suspicion by mainstream politicians and strongly supported only by those who were somewhat marginal – leftists such as Michel Rocard and politicians from within the regions, who were either regionalists or members of the mainstream parties. One has the impression that the commitment to regionalism on the part of the 1982 reformers was rather lukewarm and more strategic (to win votes in regions like Brittany and Alsace) than sincere. Nevertheless, the reforms did give birth, albeit a difficult one, to the region as a political entity and the region has slowly matured over a period of 20 years. Today, it has a very different profile compared to when it was created in 1982. This is in part a consequence of the transformations that have occurred since that date in both the French state and, in the wider international scene with phenomena such as Europeanization and globalization. The state has had to reform itself, and the concept of ‘multi-level governance’ became popular in the 1990s as a way of expressing the relations between different levels of governance – the central state, the subnational authorities and, now, the European Union. In this new system of governance, the region rather than the department had the appropriate size and functions, even if some commentators still felt that the present 20 regions are too many and that four or five would be sufficient in France. Nevertheless, the result has been that the region has been viewed more

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favourably than hitherto by the French political and administrative elites. This also ties in with the abolition of central state planning and the adoption of regional planning and the new role of the DATAR, now the DIACT, which is more strategic and stimulating than interventionist and redistributive. The other important development, related to these changes and analysed in the last chapter, is the growth of new inter-municipal groupings. As a consequence, the departments now find themselves squeezed between them and the regions. It is, however, unlikely that the French, despite their alleged Cartesian mentality, will carry these processes to their logical conclusion and suppress the department!

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Part III The Institutions at Work

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6 The Politics of French Territorial Governance

Introduction The expression ‘territorial politics’ refers to the way in which territory relates to the political system, how different political ideologies interpret this relationship, and how political parties and movements put their interpretations into practice. Of course, ideological discourse may be simply rhetoric and far removed from actual practice. From the analysis presented so far in this book, it is clear, nevertheless, that different, competing models of territorial politics have co-existed throughout French history since the Revolution and, indeed, to some extent, already existed in the tensions between a centralizing monarchy and powerful fiefdoms in the possession of the nobility. The dominant model has been towards centralization initiated by the monarchs, continued by the Jacobins and completed, at least in its political and administrative outline by Napoleon I. To this centralizing thrust the Jacobin and Napoleonic heritage added at least the aspiration towards the standardization of political and administrative structures but also of culture and society. While political and administrative standardization became a reality by the early years of the Third Republic, cultural and societal standardization would take much longer. The second major tradition of thinking about territorial politics questioned whether this degree of standardization was even desirable. This is what we have called the Girondin tradition, from the revolutionary faction which did not question the gains of the Revolution nor indeed the advent of the Republic but which proposed a decentralized and even federalist organization of the new state regime precisely to accommodate the great diversity of France. The French political debate on territorial organization has oscillated between these two positions. As we shall see in this chapter, the pendulum has for a number of reasons swung back in recent years to the Girondin conception. During the 19th century, political movements divided around issues such as the acceptance or rejection of the Revolution and of the democratic 139

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republican regime to which it gave birth. But, although several regimes succeeded each other – two monarchies, two empires and two republics – throughout the century, it was the republican and democratic system which consolidated itself with the founding of the Third Republic in the period 1870–1875. During each regime period, those in opposition tended to support decentralization but, if they came to power, they forgot the demands they had previously made and made use of the centralized state as a way to consolidate their power. Nevertheless, the broad traditions of French political history1 are associated either with a predominantly Jacobin or centralizing orientation or, on the contrary, with a Girondin decentralizing orientation. Thus, the left has tended to favour centralization and standardization as a way in which it could best implement its aims of equality and the redistribution of wealth from the rich to the poor. As we saw in the last chapter, they also regarded with suspicion movements such as regionalism and federalism which they thought signified reaction and backwardness. In this they saw themselves as the heirs of the Jacobin faction of the revolution. At the same time, this picture needs to be nuanced by recalling that some of the left – the anarchists and anarcho-syndicalists2 – were hostile to the state as such, but particularly to the centralized state. Furthermore, the socialist left – as represented by the old French Section of the Workers’ International (SFIO – Section Française de l’Internationale Ouvrière) was itself divided between Marxists and non-Marxists, perhaps it would be better to say between revolutionists and reformers, since the latter sometimes used Marxist rhetoric. In practice, the reformist branch of French socialism, although they were ferocious Jacobins in their rhetorical discourses were quite sympathetic to the local dimension of French politics and even towards moderate decentralization. This is not surprising given that, since the 19th century, they built strong local fiefdoms in areas such as Nord, Pas-de-Calais and Marseille. Revolutionary socialism, on the other hand, as represented by the French Communist Party (PCF – Parti Communiste Français), founded in 1920 by those members of the SFIO (the majority at the Congress of Tours) who supported the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 in Russia, were even more extreme Jacobins. This is, perhaps, because their hero Lenin was a great admirer of Robespierre and the ruthless methods the latter used to impose the ‘Republic of Virtue’.3 Besides this imitation of the Leninist role model, the communists shared with the socialists the distrust and dislike of regionalism since they were even more strongly rooted in the urban proletariat and hardly likely to favour anything that smacked of provincial France.4 Finally, both socialists and communists regarded the central state as a prize to be captured and an instrument of political and social change. For the socialists, this change could happen in a piece-meal and gradualist way, while for the communists, following the Leninist theory of the party, the state was to be dominated by the party on behalf of the proletariat before its eventual ‘withering away’.

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The right have been even more divided on the issue of territorial politics than the left which is not surprising since, as René Rémond has expressed it, there are several different ‘rights’ in France.5 To simplify a rather complicated picture, we can distinguish those right-wing movements and parties which have a strong conception of the unity and indivisibility of the French nation and who refuse any kind of particularity which they feel might endanger this unity. On the classical right, this position is best exemplified by the Gaullist tradition, which, to some extent, draws on an older Bonapartist tradition which stresses the importance of a strong leader. At the same time, Gaullism accepts and, indeed, glorifies the Republic, and the Fifth Republic was an attempt to reconcile both authoritarianism and democratic republicanism. Today, there are several parties which claim the Gaullist epithet. The dominant one is the Union pour un Mouvement Populaire (UMP – formerly the RPR – Rassemblement pour la République), the party of the French President Jacques Chirac but this is challenged by the Rassemblement pour la France (RPF) founded by Charles Pasqua, and the Mouvement pour la France (MPF), led by Philippe de Villiers and founded to promote the NO vote in the referendums on the Treaty of Maastricht in 1992 and which was active in opposing the ratification by referendum of the European Constitution in 2005. While the UMP emphasizes the importance of the French central state, it is open both to decentralization and European integration. The two challengers, however, oppose both these tendencies and define themselves as being ‘souverainiste’. Alongside these parties of the ‘classical’ Gaullist right is the extremeright movement centred on the Front National (FN) of Jean-Marie Le Pen, but now divided into rival camps. This movement shares many of the same ideas on national sovereignty as the Gaullist right but adds to this a rejection of key republican values such as equality, fraternity and liberty as well as espousing racist and xenophobic positions. Among the non-Gaullist right, there is also a variety of parties and movements, now mostly grouped under the banner of the Union pour la Démocratie Française (UDF), founded in 1978 by Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, then President of the Republic, and now led by François Bayrou. The groups within the UDF contain both the classical right as well as those who espouse centrist positions, including what is left of the French Christian democratic tradition. Needless, to say, given this wide array of groups, there is also a variety of positions on the territorial question ranging from traditional secularist Jacobinism to Christian democratic regionalism and European federalism. But it is probably fair to say that, in practice, although many on the right opposed the decentralization reforms of 1982, partly out of conviction, partly simply to oppose the newly-formed socialist government, the great majority of the right now accept the irreversibility of these reforms and some of them are even willing to carry them further (this was the case with Jean-Pierre Raffarin who, as prime minister in 2002, launched Acte II of the reforms as we saw in our overview chapter).

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Thus far in this chapter, we have spoken mainly of the declared ideological positions on territorial politics of the different political families in France. But it is often the case that rhetoric and ideological discourse take place at one level – in Paris and among the political parties and intelligentsia – while life continues as usual at another level. In the next section, we shall examine the actual practice of local politics in France and how the national and the local intertwine with each other.

The intertwining of national and local politics France is not short of elected politicians which is one of the consequences of a country with 36 674 municipalities, 100 departments, 26 regions, and a parliament composed of a National Assembly and a Senate. In 2001, there were 36 674 mayors, 514 519 town councillors and, in 2004, 1880 regional councillors and 4037 departmental councilors.6 These 557 110 élus locaux exist alongside the 577 members of the National Assembly and the 331 senators.7 At first sight, these figures give the impression of a huge disparity between national and subnational political representation. In practice, however, the national and local levels are closely interconnected by the fact that the Senate has the explicit function of representing subnational interests but especially through the system of cumul des mandats (the simultaneous holding of several offices). The Senate8 Since the Revolution, France has, except for brief periods,9 had a bicameral parliamentary system. Etymologically, the term Senate comes from the Latin senex (‘old’) and meant literally, a ‘council of old men’. This meaning of the word is reflected in the name given in 1795 by the Directory which established a Conseil des Anciens, the forerunner of the first Senate created by the Consulate in 1799.10 The Senate established itself in the Luxembourg Palace (Palais du Luxembourg) in Paris and the second chamber of parliament, whatever the regime and despite some name changes, has sat there ever since. Its main function has been to act as a counter-balance to the National Assembly, parliament’s lower chamber, with the power to modify legislation. Contrary to what is usually thought, the Senate is equal in its legislative functions to the Assembly but the latter always has the last word, which gives it the edge. Nevertheless, although the Senate cannot block legislation definitively, it can introduce substantial amendments. This is important for local authorities since another of its important functions, defined in the 1958 Constitution,11 is to represent the local authorities. This means that legislation which affects the latter can be significantly modified to take into account their concerns.12

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Article 24 of the Constitution also specifies that senators are indirectly elected. The mode of election creates a direct link with local territorial organization in that the electoral constituencies are the departments. Senators are elected for six years by a departmental electoral college (called in French the grands électeurs) consisting of deputies of the National Assembly, the members of the departmental council, the mayors and the municipal councillors. There are two kinds of election depending on the number of senators elected to a department. In the 85 departments with four senators or less, there is a majority vote over two rounds. In the remaining 14 departments with five senators or more, a proportional system is used. This means in effect that there are two types of senators: those from the most populous departments found in urban areas who are elected by the proportional method – 110 out of a total of 321 senators. The rest, that is the majority, represent the more depopulated departments found in rural areas. To some extent, this difference reflects the socioeconomic and demographic features of France. But the two types of senator also have different relationships both to the political system and to their constituencies.13 The ‘proportional’ senators are more dependent on the party machine and are often from outside the locality while the ‘majority’ senators are more rooted in the locality and more independent of the parties. There are two further variations in the election of senators. The 12 senators representing Paris are elected by its municipal council which also constitutes the electoral college. Another 12 senators represent French people living abroad and are elected by the Conseil supérieur des Français de l’étranger (itself elected by direct universal suffrage from among French expatriates) by the proportional method. Although it has stood the test of time, the Senate does not please everyone in France and there are periodic calls for its abolition. It is seen as conservative (the majority of senators have been on the political right), male-dominated and … old. Senators must be at least 35 years of age, and some of its members remain to a ripe old age. But this is to criticize an institution the raison d’être of which is to give a voice to the wisdom of age (it is, after all, supposed to be the Senate). The venerable institution has been able to ward off these attacks (except for those short periods when it did not exist). The most serious attack came from General De Gaulle in the 1969 referendum, referred to several times already in this book, which was not just about setting up regional assemblies but also entailed a transformation of the Senate. Senators (accurately) saw De Gaulle’s proposals as endangering, not just the municipalities and departments which they represented (the regionalist reforms), but the very existence of the Senate itself, that is, their own position. In the end, it was this threat of political extinction even more than regionalization that was the principal cause of the defeat of the referendum and the subsequent departure of De Gaulle from public life.

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The system of ‘cumul des mandats’ While the Senate is the official representation of local authorities at the level of national legislation, the other main channel of representation, the cumul des mandats (‘the accumulation of elected and non-elected public offices’)14 also involves the members of the National Assembly. The accumulation of offices may be either horizontal – the offices held are on the same level (all at the local or all at the national levels) – or vertical – they are on different levels (local, national and European). Although this is permitted and practised in other countries,15 it is especially characteristic of France,16 Michel Debré described it as one of the consequences of French centralization: because power is so centralized, local politicians feel they must be present at the national level in order to have access to it. For this reason, the cumulaire system is also notabiliaire, which means that it favours the local notables and allows them to represent their ‘clienteles’ at the national level. This is related to the nature of the French political parties, which are very weak compared to those of other European countries, particularly at the local level where they rely on the local notables rather than the other way around. These factors have strongly entrenched the cumul des mandats system in France. One of the more extreme examples of its practice, from the mid1980s, is that of the Christian Democrat politician, Jean Lecanuet, who held five offices simultaneously: mayor of Rouen, deputy in the National Assembly, senator, government minister and MEP.17 The system has proved extremely difficult to reform and, despite several attempts to do, it remains strong. In 1997, only 9.2 per cent of deputies and 16.2 per cent of senators held that office alone. Among the deputies, 39 per cent held two offices, 48.4 per cent held three and 3.5 per cent held four. Among the senators, 32.7 per cent held two offices, 50.8 per cent three and one held four. The presidents of regional and departmental councils also accumulated offices. Among regional presidents, 80.8 per cent held two or three offices as did 92 per cent of the departmental presidents. The most common combination, however, is to combine the office of mayor with a national position: the deputy-mayor or the senator-mayor. The system has its critics, including a majority of the general public,18 as well as its defenders. The arguments against are that: there is a conflict of interests between the national and local levels which the system fudges over; it short-circuits decision-making processes and dilutes responsibilities; it imposes too great a burden on individual politicians; it reinforces oligarchic and isolationist tendencies among the political class, thus blocking the entry into politics of other sections of the population such as women; and it is an obstacle to the modernization of politics and of decentralization.19 One of its most forthright critics is Yves Mény who argues that it is one of the causes of corruption in France.20 Sadran, while being aware of these objections, points to some of its advantages: it can be a counter to decentralization (this was also the argument of Michel Debré

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referred to above) and the political class might become more professional since they have to engage in full-time politics to hold down so many offices (it is not clear whether this is a tongue-in-cheek argument!). The same author holds that, while there should be some limitation on the number of offices held by one politician, the system should not be abolished completely as it can be related to contemporary trends in politics and governance now characterized by complexity, cooperation and partnership and ‘multi-level governance’.21 The approach advocated by Sadran – retain the system but limit it – has, in fact, been adopted by successive French governments since the 1982 decentralization reforms. In 1985 two laws were passed, one applicable to national politicians and the other to politicians with local and European mandates, which forbade the simultaneous holding of a parliamentary mandate with more than one other among a list of other elected posts.22 In practice, though, there were numerous exceptions, such as limiting the municipalities affected to those with more than 20 000 inhabitants, which meant that relatively few politicians were affected by the reform. In 1997 the socialist Prime Minister Lionel Jospin, apparently supported by the Gaullist President Jacques Chirac, announced a new attempt at reform. This led to a long tussle between the Senate, determined to minimize the changes, and the National Assembly, whose then left-wing majority sought more radical changes. As a result of these delays, it was not until 2000 that two laws, again one for national politicians and another for those at the local and European levels, were finally adopted.23 For national politicians, membership of the European Parliament was added to the already existing incompatibility between the offices of deputy and senator. They may hold only one other elected post24 but may not hold executive positions: regional or departmental president; president of the Corsican executive; mayor of a municipality or of an arrondissement. Clearly, the law concerning European and local politicians is the mirror image of the first law. But it also limits to two the local offices that can be held by local politicians25 and forbids the holding of more than one executive position. Although this is undoubtedly an improvement on previous reform attempts (especially the reduction of the threshold of municipal size to 3500 inhabitants which brings many more politicians into the net), those who wish to see the complete abolition of the system are still unsatisfied. There are still a great number of municipalities with less than 3500 inhabitants and the majority of deputies and senators still hold more than one elected position.

The political parties and local politics We have already noted that, in the ‘party-notable nexus’, the parties depend on the notables for their implantation at the local level rather than vice versa. This is a reflection of the nature of French political parties, with their lack of party organization and their tenuous connections with civil

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society.26 It is true that the parties of the left, in particular the Communist Party, in the past built strong party organizations but today these are greatly weakened with overall membership of the French parties now down to about 500 000.27 Furthermore, the political parties rank very low in public opinion, with a 1997 Eurobarometer finding showing that 83 per cent of the population have no confidence in them. The weakness of the parties is also a consequence of the way in which General De Gaulle, with the help of Michel Debré, designed the Fifth Republic. The General was convinced that it was the irresponsible and overbearing role of the parties which had been key factors in bringing the Third Republic to an end with French defeat by Germany in 1940 and in the chronic political instability of the Fourth Republic. The semi-presidential system of the Fifth Republic was a way of marginalizing the parties and strengthening the executive in the form of the President of the Republic and his appointee, the prime minister. Despite these weaknesses, parties still play an important role in the political system of representative democracy. After all, it is they who form the legislature and pass the laws which determine the nature and content of French politics and policy. Furthermore, the Fifth Republic has, perhaps despite the intentions of its founders, seen a gradual reconfiguration of relationships among the parties, with the formation of a left-wing bloc dominated by the Socialist Party and a right-wing bloc dominated mostly by the Gaullists but whose leadership is challenged by other parties. This has transformed France from a multi-party system as it was during the Third and Fourth Republics to something resembling a two-party system, although of course the two ‘blocs’ are not single parties but coalitions of parties which are not always very unified. The system was originally designed to elect a strong president and a government appointed by the president but drawn from the parliamentary majority. A question arose, therefore, whether the system could survive a president and a parliamentary majority from opposing camps. In 1986, the test came when the socialist president François Mitterrand appointed the Gaullist RPR leader Jacques Chirac as prime minister. The system survived this ‘cohabitation’ and there have been two other such periods.28 Although this party system operates at the national level, it is less prevalent at the local although, as we shall see below, there is an increasing partisanship, that is, a growing importance of political parties in local politics. Still, even the notables who have dominated local politics need to be elected and we now turn to the electoral mechanisms at the subnational level, which as we shall see, are quite complex.

Subnational elections All local government elections at whatever level – municipal, departmental or regional – are by direct universal suffrage but the systems differ at the

The Politics of French Territorial Governance 147

different levels. All EU citizens may vote and be candidates in these elections, although they may not be a councillor in France and their home country at the same time. Apart from in the very small municipalities, the electoral systems try to reconcile two imperatives: that of providing effective government by producing working majorities while permitting the representation of minorities.29 But the problem for France is that there are very different conditions prevailing between the great majority of municipalities which have very small populations and the small minority which have large populations and needs on a very different scale. Municipal electoral systems30 During the Third Republic, between 1884 when local government elections were introduced and 1940, there was a two-round majority system in operation for all municipal elections. After the Second World War, there were several changes to the local government electoral system, especially the introduction in 1947 of proportional representation for municipalities of more than 9000 inhabitants. In 1959, after the change of regime to the Fifth Republic, General De Gaulle, in an ordinance, maintained the PR system but only for those municipalities with over 120 000 inhabitants while the rest reverted to the majority system. The current system, established by two laws31 (inspired by a law passed in Mussolini’s Italy in 1923) in late 1982 as part of the decentralization reforms was, according to then prime minister, Pierre Mauroy, an attempt to be both ‘juste et efficace’. It still distinguished between the large number of small municipalities (those with less than 3500 inhabitants), which maintained the majority system and the larger ones above this threshold, which adopted a mixed majorityproportional system. Although it is not without its critics, the current system has been widely praised as achieving the ends of combining justice for minorities with effective government.32 Paul Alliès asked whether the system was not simply ‘exemplary’.33 Municipalities with less than 3500 inhabitants The electoral system in these small municipalities is a two-round majority system with complete lists, that is, the number of candidates corresponds to the number of seats available. To be elected in the first round, a list must receive an absolute majority of the votes cast and a minimum of one quarter of the number of registered voters. In the second round, a simple majority is all that is required. If the number of votes is equal, then the seat goes to the older of the candidates. It is also possible at this level to combine votes for candidates from different lists (panachage) and even to add other names. In municipalities of less than 2500 inhabitants, independent candidacies are possible, as are incomplete lists and lists with more candidates than seats. It is even possible to be elected without having been a candidate! There are no by-elections to replace councillors who resign or die but if a municipal council loses one third of its members, then new

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elections are held, except if there are new general elections within a year in which case new elections are held if the council has lost one half of its members. Municipalities with 3500 inhabitants and more In these municipalities, there is also a two-round complete list system but without the possibility of panachage. It is also not possible to alter the order of preferences which is under the control of the party which draws up the list. In recent years there has been an attempt to include better representation of women in politics and at this level, as at the national, there is strict parity of the sexes (‘la parité’): three women must be included in every group of six candidates on the list. Candidates can be members of only one list and in only one municipality. If a list obtains an absolute majority of the votes cast, they receive 50 per cent of the total number of seats. The remaining seats are distributed proportionally using the highest average method.34 The remaining seats are distributed, using the same proportional method, across the other lists which have obtained at least 5 per cent of the votes. Seats are attributed to candidates on these lists according to their position on the list. If no list obtains an absolute majority in the first round, the elections go to a second but only those lists which obtained 10 per cent of the votes cast in the first may proceed to the second. In the second round, the only combination possible is a fusion of lists in which one list accepts to include another. Only candidates who stood in the first round can stand again and only as members of the list on which they ran in the first. In the second round, the list obtaining the highest number of votes is awarded half of the seats. The remaining seats are distributed proportionally using the highest average method to those lists which have obtained at least 5 per cent of the votes cast. Although this electoral system has been widely praised by political commentators in France such as Paul Alliès, it is not without its critics, including Alliès himself.35 He identified three problems associated with it: its ‘functionalization’ whereby it is used as a means of capturing or reinforcing a local politico-administrative fiefdom;36 the marginalization of the opposition; and the ‘notabilisation’ of local political actors. The first occurs when local interest groups use the elections as a means of entering the local political system especially through the horizontal accumulation of offices (both in the council and other non-elected positions). The second is a result of the ‘reward’ system which sees the majority list obtaining half of the seats. This has the effect of neutralizing the opposition parties. Finally, combined with the system of vertical accumulation of offices, which we have analysed above, the system gives the local notables an opportunity to reinforce their position. This tends to encourage a static status quo instead of more dynamic local political entrepreneurship. Yves Mény, for his part, also criti-

The Politics of French Territorial Governance 149

cizes the system which he sees as being responsible for political corruption.37 Jean-Jacques Urvoas sees a problem in the system of fusion of lists between the two rounds, which may permit those whom the voters rejected in the first round to reappear in the second and which gives the parties the opportunity to manipulate the voters’ preferences to their own benefit.38. The departmental electoral system: the cantons The cantons are the electoral constituencies of the departmental councils (the conseils généraux) and, like the departments, were created during the French Revolution by a law of 22 December 1789. Departmental councillors are elected in single-member constituencies in two rounds. A candidate is elected in the first round if he obtains an absolute majority of the votes cast and a quarter of the number of registered voters. If no candidate achieves this result in the first round, a second round is held when a simple majority suffices. In order to be eligible to stand again in the second round, a candidate must have received at least 10 per cent of the number of registered voters. If no candidate has reached this threshold, then the two candidates who have received the most votes in the first round proceed to the second. Departmental councillors are elected for six years, but half the council is renewed every three years. The elections are usually timed to take place on the same day as the municipal or the regional elections. In 1990, Prime Minister Michel Rocard’s government passed a law which abolished this system of partial renewal in order that the cantonal and the regional elections be held on the same day with the complete renewal of both councils. But this law was cancelled by the right-wing government of Edouard Balladur who reverted to the previous system.39 Critics, such as the independent senator Jean-Louis Masson, have labelled the current system of elections as being anachronistic, unjust and sexist.40 They are an anachronism because they were originally designed to suit the lifestyle of local notables who had a very narrow range of interests. They are unjust because of the great disparities in population and wealth between cantons even within the same department. They are sexist because women are grossly under-represented in the departmental councils accounting for only 10.4 per cent of the total number of councillors. This compares with 47.6 per cent in the regional councils, 43.6 per cent among the French members of the European Parliament and even 24.2 per cent of the renewed batch of senators in September 2004. Mr Masson proposed that the existing cantons be abolished and replaced as the departments’ electoral constituencies by the ECPIs à fiscalité propre, which he claims correspond more exactly to the socio-economic and demographic features of contemporary France. There is little doubt that the senator is correct in arguing that the cantonal constituencies are indeed an anachronism in today’s France, given the massive movements of population from the countryside into the towns. Mr Masson also proposed to adopt, at

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least in those cantons with more than one councillor, a mixed majorityproportional system. In cantons which elected one councillor the existing system would remain. This would mirror the distinction in the electoral systems of the large and small municipalities. Finally, Masson, a keen advocate of gender equality, included in the bill a measure to adopt the system of parity of the sexes in operation in other elections. The regional electoral system The establishment of directly-elected regional councils was a key innovative element of the 1982 decentralization reforms. Before 1982, as noted in a previous chapter, regional councillors were elected by an electoral college consisting of the deputies and senators of the region, the mayors of the large towns, representatives of the other mayors and representatives of the departmental councils.41 The electoral system of the new regions, established in 198542 for use in the 1986 elections and subsequently in the 1992 and 1998 elections, was modelled on that used for elections to the 1986 National Assembly, the lower house of the parliament. This was a closed list system with seats allocated by proportional representation using the highest average method, without the possibility of combination or of a preferential vote. The threshold for the attribution of seats was 5 per cent of the votes cast. The electoral constituencies were the departments found within the region with departmental party lists. Both the electoral system adopted and the conditions in which the first elections took place undoubtedly placed the new institutions at a serious disadvantage and weakened their legitimacy in the eyes of both the public and the political class. First, following a long postponement by the socialist government, who feared that the right-wing opposition might use the new councils as a base from which to attack them, they finally took place in June 1986 on the same day as the parliamentary elections. The importance of national parliamentary elections obviously overshadowed the regional elections, and the originality of the new institutions was not as striking as it ought to have been. Second, using the departments as the electoral constituencies diminished the regional character of the elections and reinforced the image of the department in the eyes of the electorate to the detriment of that of the region. Third, the system of proportional representation adopted and the low threshold necessary to obtain seats meant that it was difficult for parties to form a governing majority, which would elect the regional president who headed the executive of the region. This meant that it was necessary to form coalitions – a difficult task since the ease with which parties could obtain a seat with the low threshold meant there was a great deal of fragmentation, including dissident lists within parties. In some instances, the centre-right overcame the problem of majority formation through unsavoury deals done with the extreme-right Front National of Jean-Marie Le Pen, even if this was condemned by the Paris headquarters

The Politics of French Territorial Governance 151

of the parties involved. The problem was clearly visible following the 1992 regional elections when only four regional councils (out of 20 in metropolitan France) had working majorities, and in 1998 this was the case with just two. The most important consequence of this situation was that it proved difficult to approve the regional budgets, and this prompted the government to pass a law in 1998 which meant the budget was adopted automatically if it was not passed by the council within a certain time. But, this, of course, was to defeat the purpose of the directly-elected regional councils in the first place, since control of the budget is a key element of regional decision-making. Criticisms of these defects in the original electoral design of the regional councils led the Jospin government to reform the system with a law passed in January 199943 in the context of giving a second wind to the decentralization reforms. This law strengthened the ‘regionalist’ dimension of the elections by having as the constituency the entire region and not the departments within the region. This meant that voters would choose among regional lists. Although the law retained the original method of proportional representation, it also attempted to reduce the previous fragmentation and instability by introducing a bonus system similar to that operating in the municipal elections.44 Furthermore, as in the municipalities, the elections will take place in one round if there is an absolute majority or, failing this, go to a second round when a simple majority will suffice. In either case, the list in front would receive a bonus. But there were some differences which would prove controversial. The bonus awarded to the winning list was 25 per cent of the seats instead of the 50 per cent in the municipal elections. Another difference was that a list need obtain only 5 per cent of the votes cast to proceed to the second round, rather than 10 per cent as in the municipal elections. The 1999 law also reduced the length of the councillor’s mandate to five years instead of six thus setting up a difference between it and the length of other mandates such as those for the municipalities and departments. This was criticized on the grounds that, besides the lack of synchronicity with other local councils, the length of time was too short to develop a policy programme for the region. A response to some of these criticisms of these measures were met with the passage of a 2003 law which restored the sixyear mandate and also raised the threshold necessary to proceed to the second round to 10 per cent of the votes cast (although fusion is possible for those lists which obtained 5 per cent in the first round).45 Finally, an important element of these legislative measures strengthening the region is the requirement passed in a 2000 law that there be gender parity on the regional lists as in other elections. These reflections bring home the point that it is not easy to devise an electoral system that meets the criteria of both fairness in representation and effectiveness in government. The more proportional representation, the less

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effective is government; and the greater the majoritarian element, the more effective it is. The French case is compounded by the fact that there is a huge disparity among different types of local authority in terms of both population and institutional capacity. For this reason, there cannot be a single uniform electoral system for all levels. The biggest problem lies with the large number of small municipalities with few inhabitants who clearly lack the capacity to carry out many of the tasks allotted to them. These are clearly of a different character compared to even a middle-sized town. The French are right therefore to have adopted two kinds of electoral system for the municipalities. For the great number of small municipalities with fewer than 3500 this is a simple majority system where the rules are quite flexible. This is clearly suited to the demographic features of these municipalities. For the larger municipalities, the mixed majority-proportional system seems to work. The electoral system of the departments, however, based as it is on the cantons with partial renewal, seems to be an anachronism in today’s France, given the vast socio-economic and demographic changes that have occurred since the Second World War. Serious reforms are still necessary for this level. With regard to the region, there is little doubt that it has been seriously damaged as an institution by the cavalier attitude to its electoral system adopted by the socialists in the early years of the decentralization reforms. 20 years on, there are signs of some improvements with the adoption of a single regional constituency and reform of the electoral system to avoid fragmentation and instability.

Subnational electoral trends and democracy A key question in political science is the status of elections at different levels. Liberal representative democracy grew up in the context of the nation-state and democratic legitimacy – the legitimacy that derives from the ‘nation’ or the ‘people’ – is primarily expressed through elections to national parliaments. The question then arises as to the basis of legitimacy of other kinds of elections, whether European or subnational. Is this simply derivative of national legitimacy or are local and European elections legitimate in their own right? With regard to European elections, the development of the notion of European citizenship does provide another basis of legitimacy, albeit a weak one so far, alongside that provided by the nationstate. The local level is more problematic but, in recent decades, the notion of regional and local democracy has been developed by organizations such as the Council of Europe and the EU’s Committee of the Regions.46 In the Scandinavian countries and the UK, there is a long tradition of local democracy and local government but in those countries with a Napoleonic tradition including, obviously, France, the notion of local democracy is more problematic, at least at the theoretical level. Nevertheless, even in a country such as France, local democracy is actually quite alive, and this is

The Politics of French Territorial Governance 153

one of the explanations as to why it has been so difficult to reform its municipal system. The French have a strong attachment to their municipalities and to their mayors. Nevertheless, despite this local enracinement, France is also experiencing the same trends that exist right across Europe, which are towards the nationalization of local politics and elections. In other words, local elections, like those for the European Parliament, are increasingly tests about national issues such as the performance of national governments rather than about truly local issues, which is what they are meant to be. In other words, these elections are ‘second-order’ elections. This in turn is related to the growing importance of the political parties, that is the increasing partisan nature of local elections. But, again, this phenomenon is affected by the size of the municipality or the nature of the department (rural or urban). Municipal elections First, there is a difference between the very small municipalities, which, for the most part, remain resolutely local and are fought around local personalities, and the larger towns and cities where partisan and national issues are more important. In the small municipalities, elections are mostly about who will be mayor, even if he is not directly elected but is chosen by the council. It is generally assumed that he will be the person who heads the winning list. At this very local level, citizens identify strongly with the mayor more than with his party. The importance of this post can be seen that, despite attempts to reform the system of the accumulation of offices mentioned above, roughly three-quarters of the deputies of the National Assembly are also mayors. When the direct link between the mayor and the local citizenry is broken, as in the larger towns and cities, then ideology and partisan politics become more important.47 On the other hand, even in larger towns and cities, the mayor can be a dominating figure and may occupy this position for long periods of time. The classical case of the longserving député-maire is the Gaullist Jacques Chaban-Delmas, who was mayor of Bordeaux for almost fifty years (1947–1995); deputy of the Gironde for an even longer period (1946–1997); prime minister under Pompidou (1969–1972); and minister five times during the Fourth Republic. Other striking cases are the socialist Pierre Mauroy: mayor of Lille for 28 years (1973–2001); deputy (1973–1992) or senator (1992-present); prime minister of the first socialist government elected in 1982 and subsequently the holder of several ministerial positions. Today, he is ‘honorary’ mayor of Lille. Nevertheless, although in these cases, the personality of the mayor is extremely important, the party is also important and both Chaban-Delmas and Mauroy have been committed members of their Gaullist and socialist formations respectively. The different electoral systems – majority in the small and mixed proportional-majority in the larger municipalities – play a

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role in determining how partisan the local elections are. In the larger municipalities the political parties draw up the lists and decide the order of the candidates. Unlike in the smaller municipalities, this order cannot be changed once it is fixed. It is also they who decide on fusions between lists that may take place between the first and second rounds of an election. This does not mean that all municipalities with more than 3500 inhabitants will be dominated by the parties. It might be better to think of a spectrum between large urban municipalities, where the parties are almost completely dominant and small very rural municipalities where local personalities are completely dominant. In between there is a wide range of possible combinations of the two features. Nevertheless, according to some commentators, the partisan and ideological aspects, strong in the larger towns and cities, are spreading increasingly to the smaller municipalities. Related to the question of the partisan nature of local elections is the increasing bi-polarization of French politics throughout the Fifth Republic between two large ‘blocs’ of right and left discussed above. This has divided the country almost exactly in half. Local elections became important testing grounds for these coalitions of right and left and particularly for the left as, in the 1970s, it was at this level that they were most likely to win political power. A strategy of local alliances between socialists and communists might seem logical but, in fact, it was not as straightforward as it might seem. This is because one of the constituent elements of the Socialist Party, the Section Française de l’Internationale Ouvrière (SFIO) had a history of anti-communism and was already strongly implanted at the local level. Furthermore, during the Fourth Republic it had formed alliances with centrist parties and many at the local level were opposed to joining with the communists. But, with some exceptions (as in Gaston Defferre’s Marseille), the socialist-communist alliance strategy was adopted and led to Table 6.1 Balance of forces between Right and Left at national and local (municipalities of more than 9000 inhabitants) levels (% of votes cast) M

L

P

L

M

L

P

L

M

L

P

1977 1978 1981 1981 1983 1986 1988 1988 1989 1993 1995 Left Right

52.6 51.3 48.7 43.0 45.1 46.9

57.6 40.5

45.3 44.4 52.7 54.0

54.0 49.3 46.0 46.0 50.1 50.8

Ecologists Abstentions

3.9 3.6 4.4 27.6 18.8 20.4

1.9 32.3

2.0 1.6 28.3 24.6

3.7 0.6 3.2 20.6 37.2 35.9

Source: P. Habert and C. Ysmal (1989)48 and http://fr.wikipedia.org/ M = municipal elections L = Legislative (parliamentary) elections P = Presidential elections

31.2 47.36 50.5 52.64 (FN– 3.5) 0.2 – 32.4 20.3

The Politics of French Territorial Governance 155

the left winning a convincing majority in the 1977 municipal elections. Although inter-coalition squabbling between the parties cost them the parliamentary elections in 1978, the united left went on in 1981 to win first the presidential and then the parliamentary elections. The honeymoon period lasted until the 1983 municipal elections when the left also won a majority of councils. Table 6.1 illustrates the bi-polarization and deep division of France into the two great ideological blocs. The Table also shows that the right managed to win back power and a system of alternation began to be established with, eventually, ‘co-habitation’ between a socialist president and a right-wing prime minister (Chirac) a situation reversed when Chirac was elected president and the socialist Lionel Jospin became prime minister. To what extent, then, has this evolution of French national politics affected local politics? It can be seen from Table 6.2 that the overall split into right and left is more or less the same at the local level as it is on the national. This confirms what was argued above that there is increasing partisanship at the local level. Furthermore, local elections may be used to punish a government in power which has fallen out of favour with the electorate. This was the case in 1983 when the left-wing coalition began to disintegrate and the socialist government under Prime Minister Laurent Fabius began to adopt neo-liberal policies, a switch which cost them the support of their more left-wing supporters. This led to right-wing victories in the municipal elections of that year and in the 1986 parliamentary elections. The right-wing momentum was maintained in 1988 when, despite the fact that François Mitterrand was re-elected president, the right won the parliamentary elections in that year and the municipal elections in 1989. Although the global results show the importance of the right-left cleavage, it is also the cases that, within each of the blocs, relations among the parties are not as harmonious as the global figures might suggest. We have already mentioned the continuing tensions between the socialists and communists. The rise of the ecologists as a political force has also added an unpredictable ingredient to the left-wing mix. On the right, too, there is competition for hegemony between the Gaullists on the one hand Table 6.2 Evolution of municipal elections in towns of 9000 inhabitants or more in 1977, 1983 and 1989 (% of votes cast)

Total Left Total Right Ecologists and others Unclassifiable

1977

1983

1989

52.6 43.0 3.9 0.5

45.3 52.7 2.0

46.0 50.8 3.2

Source: Habert and Ysmal (1989), p. 18.

156 Subnational Government

and the centrists and liberals on the other. But even within the parties there is a continuing fragmentation as we saw, for example, with the Gaullists who have three parties laying claim to the Gaullist heritage. Furthermore, the right has had to contend with the rise of Le Pen’s extreme-right National Front who has used the local elections as testing grounds for national contests. Another factor affecting the outcome of local elections and whether or not they simply reflect national issues is the point at which they occur in the electoral cycle.49 Basically, if local (or European) elections take place shortly after national elections, the governing parties of left or right will benefit from a ‘honey-moon’ effect and tend to do well. If they occur midway through the cycle, there will often be elections where the ruling parties are punished. If they are towards the end of the cycle, they will anticipate the forthcoming national elections. The point in the electoral cycle also affects turnout. If local elections are held just before, or simultaneously with, national elections, turnout increases. If they are held just after national elections, then participation decreases and there is a return to more local and personality issues. Regional and cantonal elections50 One of the most innovative developments among the 1982 decentralization reforms was the decision to upgrade the regions to fully-fledged regional councils elected by universal suffrage. In practice, the regional councils have had great difficulty in establishing themselves as a level of democratic governance with a high profile among the population. Rather than promoting the new bodies the socialist government seemed to go out of its way to hamstring them and to ensure that they would not get off to a good start. We have already explained above some of the reasons for this, and overall the ambiguities surrounding the new regions reflected lingering Jacobin tendencies within French socialism including those who feared that the new regions would eclipse the already existing departments.51 Despite its inadequacies the regional electoral system was used in 1986 and also in 1992 and 1998. The 1986 elections saw the realization of the worst fears of the socialists since the right won majorities in almost all of the regional councils in metropolitan France. The fact that the parliamentary elections were held on the same day meant that the issues that were being fought out in these elections were concerned with national party issues rather than truly local and regional issues. For this reason, Pascal Perrineau has described these elections as second-order elections. The 1992 regional elections were held, not on the same day as the parliamentary elections, but simultaneously with the partial renewal of the cantonal elections (which elected the departmental councillors). These elections, according to Perrineau, were no longer secondorder but mid-term tests half-way through the electoral cycle. Although the

The Politics of French Territorial Governance 157

1992 elections were more ‘regional’ than those held in 1986 since the departments were only partially renewed, they still reflected mainly national and/or departmental issues. The same could be said of the 1998 elections. But perhaps the most serious deficiency of the regional councils which emanated from these elections was a direct result of the proportional electoral system, with its low threshold of votes necessary to obtain seats. This led to the fragmentation of local and regional politics which manifested itself along a number of different dimensions. Firstly, growing abstentions meant a decline in support of the governing parties, whether of the right and left, who were also undermined by the emergence of anti-system political forces, the Greens on the extreme left and the National Front on the extreme right. The growing abstentions and the decomposition of the parties of government (the PCF, PS, RPR, UDF) can be seen in the trends across the three elections: in 1986, 22.1 per cent of registered voters abstained and 29.3 per cent of all voters voted for the then opposition parties (RPR-UDF); in 1992, the absentees were more numerous than those who supported the right – 31.4 per cent as opposed to 21 per cent; in 1998, the absentees outnumbered those who voted for all the governing parties – 42 per cent as opposed to 19.8 per cent for the right and 21.9 per cent of the ‘plural left’! The share of votes for the four big parties (PCF, PS, RPR and UDF) declined dramatically over the three elections: 79 per cent in 1986; 60 per cent in 1992; and 34 per cent in 1998.52 Secondly, although the proportional electoral system and the low threshold meant that there was a wide representation of parties, its main effect was to make it extremely difficult to form majorities in the councils in order to elect the regional presidents, who, in turn, form the regional executives. The tasks of the executive are to adopt the regional budget and to draw up a set of priorities within the competences assigned to them. The difficulty of forming an executive created a negative image of the regions in the eyes of the public and this was exacerbated in some regions where the classical right entered into an alliance with the extreme right Front National in order to elect their president despite the injunction from the national levels of the parties not to enter into such alliances. Following the 1998 elections it was clear that the electoral system needed reform to remedy some of these defects. The left-wing Jospin government passed a law in 199953 which changed the mode of election. First, the use of the department as the electoral constituency was abolished and replaced by one which covered the entire region. Second, a mixed majority-proportional system modelled on that used in municipal elections, although with some differences, was adopted. The system of proportional representation with the highest average was retained but, in an attempt to correct the perverse effects outlined above, there are now two rounds as well as a bonus of 25 per cent of the seats which go to the list which obtains a majority of the votes cast (either an absolute majority in the first round or, failing this, a relative

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majority in the second). Where the regional system differs from that of the larger municipalities is that a list needs only 3 per cent (instead of 5 per cent as in the municipalities) of the votes cast to be able to fuse with another list between rounds and only 5 per cent (instead of 10 per cent) to go through to the second round. The right-wing Raffarin government, which succeeded Jospin’s further modified this new system by adopting the thresholds of five per cent and 10 per cent respectively as used in the municipal elections.54 The departmentalist aspect was not abandoned completely since the lists had departmental ‘sections’ and each department was allocated a number of seats, but this was determined by the number of inhabitants in the department rather than being the same for each department as before. In this way, some account was taken of the demographic differences across a region. Another important innovation introduced in a 2000 law was the application of the principle of gender parity in the composition of the lists (a principle applied in other elections).55 The new dispositions were in place in time for the regional elections of 2004, which, taking place at the same time as the partial renewal of the departmental councils and midway through the electoral cycle (Jacques Chirac had been elected president in 2002 and the socialists led by Lionel Jospin suffered an ignominious defeat at the hands of the right) were the first test with regard to their effectiveness in promoting a truly regional politics. The national context, however, continued to have an important impact on the regional elections. First, although the new constraints with regard to list formation (mainly application of the ‘principle of parity’) and the higher threshold necessary for gaining seats or going through to the second round brought about a reduction in the number of dissident lists, the divisions within the political camps, especially on the right, meant that the average number of lists in these elections did not change much from previous elections.56 At the same time, the left were more successful in cobbling together common lists than the right. Second, this was a period when France was experiencing serious economic problems and the right-wing government was attempting to introduce neo-liberal type reforms which were deeply unpopular. It was also a period of serious urban unrest and insecurity – the revolts of the banlieue – and, although the tough line of the Interior Minister, Nicolas Sarkozy, was quite popular, the overall approach of the government was not viewed favourably by the general population. These deep divisions resulted in no list in any region winning an absolute majority in the first round of the elections and all went to a second round. The divisions were somewhat less profound on the left, which managed to fuse into a common list in all but two regions (Midi-Pyrénées and Champagne-Ardennes, where the Greens and socialists were in contention) than on the right, where the UDF refused in some regions to fuse with the UMP (formerly RPR), on the grounds that some of the sections of the latter had formed alliances with the National Front.

The Politics of French Territorial Governance 159 Table 6.3

Results of regional elections 2004

Party

UMP

Overall Results in France (% of votes received) No. of councils in which party forms the majority

32.21 2

PS

FN

UDF

PCF

PRG Others

49.33 12.39 4.69

0.57 0.22

0.60

22

1

1

Source: http://www.election-politique.com/regresult2.php

The results of the elections gave the left a majority in 20 of the 22 regions of mainland France, the remaining two (Alsace and Corsica) being taken by the UMP. One notable feature of these elections was a significant increase in participation between the two rounds which was particularly favourable to the left. The principal factor in this increase seems to have been related to the presence or not of the National Front in the second round. In those regions where they were present, the left came out in greater numbers to ensure that they were defeated. In those regions, where the FN did not go through to the second round, the left’s supporters did not feel it necessary to do this while, at the same time, many of those who had voted for the extreme-right now switched their support to the classical right. The main lesson from these elections is that they were still being fought mainly on national issues and thus their ‘regional’ character was not as strong as regionalists might have wished for. At the same time, the regional elections largely eclipsed the cantonal elections in terms of media profile and popular interest. Furthermore, the new electoral system has made it easier to produce working majorities and this will undoubtedly improve the image of the regions in public opinion. Table 6.3 illustrates that the PS was largely the beneficiary of the new system in the 2004 regional elections. Election results reveal a snapshot of public opinion and the political parties at particular moments in time. But they do not reveal the entirety of public opinion and it is useful to refer to other sources such as sociological surveys. Particularly useful in this regard are the continuing series of surveys carried out by the Observatoire Interrégional Politique (OIP), based at Sciences Po, Paris, in collaboration with most of the French regions.57 These surveys reveal an interesting paradox in the public’s perception of the regions as a level of territorial governance. On the one hand, since the surveys began in 1986, a majority has consistently named the region rather than the department or the municipality as the ‘level of government of the future’ and are largely satisfied with the performance of the regional councils. In 1998, for example, six months after the regional elections, 59 per cent of French people thought that their regional council ‘had a project for

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the region’, and 77 per cent of these thought that this project was ‘going in the right direction’.58 This positive evaluation of the regions was held despite all the above-mentioned electoral deficiencies and the difficulties of governability caused by these and even despite a great deal of ignorance about the regions themselves – what they do and who the regional councillors are. The media too are paying increasing attention to the regions during election campaigns even if the issues are more national than local. It is noteworthy for example that the cantonal elections, electing the departmental councillors, are almost entirely ignored to the benefit of the regions. All of this is good news for an institution that was abused by the national authorities from its birth but which is slowly and painfully growing up and acquiring some political legitimacy and effectiveness.

Conclusions This chapter has highlighted the importance of the local in the French political system but also to what extent it is intertwined with national politics. The most striking examples of this interpenetration are the composition of the Senate and the system of the multiple holding of offices. This works both ways. On the one hand, France retains a strong local dimension in its political system, and this is the underlying explanation for the continued existence of a large number of municipalities of relatively few inhabitants compared to other countries. This great body of mayors and local councillors constitute a powerful force of conservatism in the French system. Furthermore, the political parties are less important at this level than are the traditional notables with their clientelistic networks. At the local level, it is the notables who dominate party politics rather than the other way around. On the other hand, it is clear that the national level is the more important from the perspective of the locus of decision-making power since, after all, it is the French government and the parliament who make the final decisions. Furthermore, at this level, the parties are key actors in channelling interests and acting as gate-keepers to the corridors of power. The ‘nationalization’ of French subnational politics and the increase in influence of the parties has, paradoxically perhaps, given its founder’s aversion to political parties, increased under the Fifth Republic. This is true in the sense that the system has led to a bi-polarity with the country divided fairly evenly between right and left blocs. Regional and local politics have been affected by this political context, and there has been a gradual nationalization and growth in partisanship at these levels. This has begun with the larger towns and cities where party machinery is strongest and has spread to the regions, departments and smaller municipalities. Thus, national, rather than regional or local, issues increasingly dominate these elections. It is true that there has been a decline in support of the large governmental parties of left and right, but this has been replaced by

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anti-system parties, and by an abstentionism which is probably the expression of a negative reaction to party politics. The new regions which began functioning as elected bodies in 1986 have experienced great difficulties thanks to an electoral system devised, apparently, to prevent their emergence as truly regional entities! But this has now been largely overcome in the reformed system and the regions’ governmental performance may at last match the positive expectations of the citizens the majority of whom regard it favourably.

7 Administering Territorial Governance: The State Strikes Back?

Introduction Thus far in this book we have examined the historical, institutional and political dimensions of French subnational government. But none of this can work without the administrative dimension. In this area too there have been significant transformations in France over the past 50 years as the state has found itself forced to adapt, first to the demands of the Welfare State during the Trente Glorieuses, and then to the challenges posed by the neo-liberal vogue of the 1980s and then to the new international developments with the acceleration of European integration and globalization during the 1990s. But before describing in some detail the recent changes to the system, it is first necessary to provide a historical context in order to assess the degree of change that has occurred. It is the prefectoral system which is the administrative nexus between local society and the French state and it will be useful to begin by examining this venerable institution.

The prefectoral system: myths and realities French public administration is a paradox. On the one hand, there is the myth of the ‘one and indivisible Republic’ which would have us believe that all local life is controlled by the central state through the prefectoral system set up by Napoleon I. Howard Machin, in his study of The Prefect in French Public Administration, describes how the legislative texts describing the role of the prefect contributed to establishing this myth of an allpowerful prefect imposing the will of the central government on submissive local authorities and manipulating political life at the local level.1 The first of these was the Loi du 28 pluviôse An VIII (17 February 1800) which defined the geographical boundaries of the new territorial administration – the departments which were divided into cantons, and the municipalities, already discussed in earlier chapters. It then described the role of the prefects who were to head each of the departments as well as that of their 162

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subordinates, the sub-prefects in charge of the cantons. Finally, it outlined the relations between the prefects and the appointed mayors of the municipalities. In the Napoleonic system, relations among the prefects, subprefects and mayors were strictly hierarchical. Jean-Antoine Chaptal, who was Napoleon’s Minister of the Interior in 1801, and responsible for territorial administration, was also a natural scientist2 and described it thus: ‘The prefect … transmits orders to the sub-prefect; this latter, to the mayors, of towns, boroughs and villages … in such a way that the chain of command descends without interruption from the minister to the subject and transmits the law and orders of the government … with the rapidity of electric fluid’! The reference to electrical fluid betrays the supposedly rationalistic and scientific basis of the system, which the reformers saw as overcoming the ‘irrational’ and confused character of the Ancien Régime. The myth of all-powerful control was symbolized by the trappings of the prefectoral office: the splendid uniforms and sumptuous palaces (la préfecture) where they lived (and still live) and from where they ruled their territories, as well as the priority given to the prefects in local protocol when they took pride of place unless a government minister happened to be present. The main function of the prefect was to incarnate the political authority of the state, executing the decisions of the central government and, in the 19th century, organizing its elections. The myth of prefectoral power and the high degree of administrative centralization needs to be counter-balanced by another aspect of French administration: the great complexity of territorial politics and administration in France analysed by historians such as Le Clère and Wright.3 Machin, too, emphasizes the gap between the myth and the reality. The prefects, far from being the all-powerful governors that the myth would have us believe (an idea also propagated by the critics of the system to justify changing it), were, in practice, constrained in their activities by a number of factors. First of all, important parts of the administration escaped them. Napoleon himself prevented prefects from becoming all-powerful territorial governors (and therefore being a threat to him) by ensuring that the functions of defence, finance and justice remained outside their control. As the role and functions of the state developed and expanded throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, the state ‘field services’ (the branches of the administration based at the local level) became increasingly complex and tended to assert their autonomy from the prefect. By the time of the foundation of the Fifth Republic in 1958, his role had been considerably reduced. The second constraint on the prefect was a consequence of the democratization of the department and the municipality, following the 1871 and 1884 laws, which allowed an elected departmental council, and an elected municipal council, who, in turn, chose the mayor. It is true that the prefect retained the position of ‘executive’ of the department, preparing its agenda and budget and continuing to be responsible for the execution of its decisions.4 He also

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exercised an ‘anticipatory supervision’ (la tutelle a priori) over the decisions of both departmental and municipal councils. Nevertheless, after the passage of the 1871 and 1884 laws, he had to deal with democraticallyelected assemblies who emphasized the legitimacy which derived from their election by universal suffrage. At the same time, it is true that the majority of municipalities remained dependent on the services of the prefecture to fulfil the tasks they were obliged to perform. The third factor that limited the authority of the prefect especially in the larger towns and cities was also related to the development of representative democracy. During the Third and Fourth Republics, parliament became in some respects more powerful than the government5 and the deputies could, in many cases, ensure that, in ‘their’ fiefdoms, the prefects remained docile to them.6 This powerful position of the local politicians – the notables – was reinforced by the system of cumul des mandats, analysed in the previous chapter. Finally, although the prefect was meant to ensure that the will of the central government was imposed on the locality, he also represented the locality in its dealings with the state. In this Janus-like role, he had to mobilize the different local actors and negotiate among them to produce a shared local vision. The first serious social science analysis of the complexities of the French administration system7 was the work of Michel Crozier who, in the 1960s, began to apply the theoretical approach known as organizational sociology which had been developed in the United States.8 Inspired by the approach pioneered by Crozier, Jean-Pierre Worms undertook an empirical study of the prefecture and its relations with the rest of the administrative system.9 Worms found the prefectoral organization to be a closed world mostly marked by routine operations, but one which was also deficient in important resources and which relied on the political and administrative system outside it in order to fulfil its tasks. This led Worms to conduct a further investigation which tried to lay bare the relations between the prefect and ‘his’ notables. This found that the prefect was at the centre of a system of mutual interdependence between himself and the local notables, mainly powerful politicians and administrators.10 Developing these insights further, François Dupuy and Jean-Claude Thoenig, also disciples of Crozier, formulated a model of French central-local relations which they termed the ‘régulation croisée’ (‘cross-regulation’) model,11 or, as it is sometimes called in English, the ‘honeycomb model’ but which might be better translated as the ‘mutual interdependence’ model.12 In this model, there are two parallel systems, the political, which includes notables, departmental councillors and mayors, and the administrative, which includes government ministers, prefects, heads of field services and local administrators. There is a hierarchical relationship within each system but they also intersect with each other. Both the hierarchical and the intersecting relationships are marked by mutual but unequal dependence. Thus, government ministers are the hierarchical superiors of the prefects but they also depend on them and

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similarly prefects are both superiors of and dependent on the heads of the field services. Ministers and prefects are dependent on the political side of the system in order to fulfil their tasks. Thus, the whole system is marked by complicity rather than a simple top-down hierarchy. One can see, therefore, the limitations and constraints placed upon the prefect. Nevertheless, despite these limitations, the prefect has remained a powerful figure in French public administration. This is so much the case that, although it comes as a surprise to learn that the prefectoral corps has no formal legal existence, membership is one of the most sought after among the graduates of the École Nationale d’Administration (ENA). The corps also possesses a strong sense of the importance of its role and of its identity. Paul Bernard, a former prefect and honorary president of the corps, has eloquently described its role as ‘l’intermédiation de l’envoyé en mission sur le territoire, bénéficiant de la confiance intuitu personae, placé dans la main du pouvoir central, doté de pouvoirs délégués, vivant au milieu de la population, pour faire le lien entre l’intérêt général de la communauté française et les intérêts particuliers et locaux’ (the prefect has the role of ‘intermediation through his being sent on mission to the locality, in possession of delegated powers, enjoying the confidence of the state by virtue of his own person and living among the population, in order to create a link between the general interest of the French nation and the specific interests of the locality’).13 The strong sense of prefectoral identity is, according to Bernard, a result of the continuity of the office throughout all the regimes in France since the Revolution and even from the period of the Ancien Régime: ‘depuis les missi dominici, les maîtres des requêtes départis pour l’exécution des ordres du roi, “les intendants de police, justice, finances”, les représentants en mission de la Convention, les préfets de l’Empire et de la République, jusqu’aux commissaires de la République lors de la libération du territoire en 1944 et aux préfets de la Vième République’ (‘from the time of the missi dominici [the envoys of the Frankish rulers], the royal envoys who left to execute the orders of the king, the “governors of police, justice and finances”, the representatives of the Convention, the prefects of the Empire and the Republic, right up to the commissioners of the Republic after Liberation in 1944 to the prefects of the Fifth Republic’).14 The prefectoral institution, according to Bernard, is a peculiarly French method of preserving the link between the state and the population which is capable of successfully adapting to changing regimes and periods of history. He distinguishes three such periods (which have also been the framework of the historical chapters of this book). First, the long period of nation-state building which began with the centralization of the Ancien Régime, continued during the Revolutionary and Napoleonic periods and lasting until the establishment of the Third Republic in 1871. According to this interpretation, the prefect played a key role in building a unified people, territory, language and nation-state. This was followed by a long

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and slow period of political decentralization (but not federalization) with the democratization of the system of local government in the 1870s and 1880s. By the time of the Fifth Republic, De Gaulle thought that the ‘effort multiséculaire de centralisation’ was no longer necessary.15 The third historical phase began during the Fifth Republic with a progressive déconcentration, that is to say, administrative decentralization, to accompany the already existing political decentralization. During this period, the role of the prefect has been to preserve national unity. Catherine Grémion analyses more finely the position of the prefect during the Fifth Republic.16 In 1964, De Gaulle’s government issued two decrees to implement his notion that the process of centralization had come to an end. The first decree confirmed the prefect as the head of the field services of the state in an attempt to counter centrifugal tendencies within the administration. The second created the CODER (Commission de développement régionale), a new regional institution with the task of promoting regional development. The CODER would be headed by a regional prefect, the first of its kind. Previously, there had been a rotating system of ‘prefect co-ordinators’ of regional development (drawn from the departmental prefects in turn) but now there would be a single ‘senior’ prefect who was also the prefect of the most important department. In effect, this meant the creation of a regional ‘capital’. What is important here was that there thus developed a new system of hierarchy among the prefects who had previously related to each other on the basis of equality. These developments were the beginning of two distinct but related sets of processes – decentralization and regionalization – that would come to complete fruition with the 1982 decentralization laws.

The role of the prefect following the 1982 decentralization laws Paul Bernard is correct in seeing the 1982 reforms as the culmination of a process of decentralization and regionalization which had already begun in previous decades of the 20th century. This implies a certain degree of continuity. But with regard to the position of the prefects, although there is continuity with previous developments, 1982 decentralization also brought about significant changes. As Grémion17 argues, the 1982 reforms did not bring about the death of the prefectoral institution but rather its profound transformation. We might add that the old hierarchical but intersecting system of ‘regulation croisée’ now gave way to an even more complex system of ‘network governance’, in which hierarchy was less evident and in which new roles were assigned to the different actors and institutions.18 The most striking changes brought about by the 1982 legislation19 were the loss to the prefect of a number of important functions and responsibilities: the transfer of the position of executive of the departmental and regional councils to the elected presidents of these councils; the power to

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distribute funds to the local authorities to carry out specific tasks and deriving from the national plan; and, finally, the supervisory power of a priori control over decisions taken by the local authorities. It was this last change which was probably the most important, as it removed in one stroke the pre-emptive control that prefects had exercised over the local authorities and, in doing so, directly challenged their position as the representatives of the state at the local level. The prefects would henceforth exercise a post de facto supervision (la tutelle a posteriori) and even here they would be obliged to limit themselves to controlling the conformity of local authority decisions with the law. Diminishing still further their supervisory powers was the fact that they now had to share this power with the administrative courts, where judges make the final interpretation of the legality of a decision.20 But controls may now also be exercised not simply by administrative judges but also by criminal judges who may be called to investigate cases of corruption and even the activities of some prefects.21 This irruption of judges onto the local government scene in France has been attributed to various factors including the growing influence of the United States, where there has been an increasingly litigious approach to private and public life, but also to the success of Italian judges in tackling political corruption during the mani pulite investigations of the 1990s.22 The Italian example stimulated the French judges to adopt a more assertive role.23 But probably the most important reason is simply that the French administrative system has undergone significant change along with the role of the prefects within this system: the system is much more chaotic, and the prefect is often incapable of imposing order on this chaos. Judges step in to try to do so. The change in the prefects’ role in 1982 was first expressed by a title change when they were renamed commissaires de la République, a title which they were given after Liberation in 1945 although then too it was later switched back to ‘prefect’.24 Just as the title did not stick during the Fourth Republic, the right-wing government of Prime Minister Jacques Chirac subsequently reverted to the original title in 1988 in order to appease opponents of the change among the ‘prefectoralist/departmentalist’ lobby. Still, although the prefects had lost a number of key functions as a result of decentralization, they remained, whatever their title, the representatives of the government and they continued to incarnate the authority of the state. In some respects, their role was even strengthened in that they had now become the ‘real’ heads of the state’s field services. This was something new since, as noted above, several of the important field services had previously escaped prefectoral control. On the other hand, the new responsibilities of the prefect may be less important than appears at first sight, since some of the field services, particularly those involving infrastructure (l’équipement), had already shifted to the departmental councils. As Grémion expresses it: ‘Les grands services de l’État local qu’étaient les services sociaux et l’équipement sont ainsi directement menacés par la croissance des services

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départementaux’ (‘the most important services of the state at the local level – social services and infrastructure – have been directly threatened by the growth of the services of the department’).25 Although this frittering away of the prefect’s field of competence is most evident at the departmental level, it is also true of the municipal and regional levels of administration. The end result has been a certain lack of clarity and of ambiguity with regard to the prefect’s position in the administrative system.26 Perhaps the difficulty in analysing the changing role of the prefect and assessing whether he is stronger or weaker comes from seeing his relations with the other parts of the administration and political system as a zerosum game, that is, a gain for the local authorities and their political leaders is a loss for the prefect and vice versa. But the changes in the French politico-administrative system mean that there is, in fact, a new kind of ‘game’ which cannot be completely analysed in terms of winners and losers (although there may be winners and losers). Within the model of mutual network interdependence referred to above, the prefect and his entourage still occupy a key central position in that, as stated by Pierre-Etienne Bisch, himself a prefect, ‘l’ensemble de la vie administrative locale vit et s’organise … autour des préfectures’ (‘the totality of local administration lives and organizes itself … around the prefectures’).27 So how does the prefect play this role? Although he maintains the traditional function of representing the state and ensuring law and order, he does not do so as a kind of ‘governor’, but more as an ‘assembler’ and coordinator of the diverse interests contained within the department or the region. The prefect chairs various committees at both regional and departmental levels whose main task is to draw up programmes of territorial development. At the departmental level, this takes the form of a strategic public action plan – the ‘Projet d’action stratégique de l’Etat dans le département’ (PASED) – previously known as the ‘Projet territorial de l’Etat’ (PTE).28 This plan is produced following several months’ preparation and is meant to adapt the general policies of the state to local realities. A planning committee (comité de pilotage) consisting of the directors of the principal field services, establishes a number of working groups whose task is to analyze the local situation and to assess and evaluate citizens’ expectations. By way of example, the 2004 PASED of the department of Meurthe-etMoselle established five policy priorities: • Ensuring the everyday security of citizens. • Promoting social cohesion and public health. • The adaptation of sustainable development and social inclusion policies to the locality (territorialiser les politiques publiques). • Promoting economic development and employment. • Improving the quality of public services (promouvoir une action publique d’excellence).29

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These overall goals were further subdivided into 14 strategic objectives which in turn were translated into 25 ‘actions’. An important feature of this approach is that these ‘actions’ involve several central ministries – the French version of what is called in Britain ‘joined-up government’. The PASED must be in harmony with the general orientations of the central ministries but it must also harmonize with the Contrat de Plan Etat-Région (CPER).30 This gives an important role to the regional prefect whose task is not only to negotiate with the regional council but also to co-ordinate the PASED’s of the different departments that compose the region. The prefects, therefore, are at the centre of dense networks of relationships at the different levels of the state and must weave a delicate path among them all. In this quite complex situation, therefore, the qualities demanded of a prefect are no longer the capacity to impose the will of the state in a top-down and authoritarian manner but the ability to negotiate and persuade, and to arrive at compromises that will satisfy most of the stake-holders involved. Interestingly, given the allegedly Cartesian and rationalistic approach of French public administration, we might say that, in the terms of the typology of authority developed by Max Weber, there has been a passage from ‘technocratic/rational’ type of authority to a more ‘charismatic’ one, as much more now depends on the distinctive personality and personal qualities of the prefect and much less on the dignity of the office which he holds. At the same time, the dignity of the office and the fact that the prefect does still represent the state are important, as he is also called on to make the final decisions in a number of areas. For example, he has the important task of establishing the ECPIs, the inter-municipal associations, and deciding which municipalities they should be composed and what are their boundaries.31 We might say therefore that the old cross-regulation model developed by Crozier and his colleagues and typical of the French politico-administrative system of the past has, since the 1982 decentralization reforms, given way to one that is much more complex, heterogeneous and asymmetrical.32 Gérard Marcou argues that, although the central state has reinforced its control in certain policy sectors (urban policy, public markets, service delivery) with judicial procedures reminiscent of the old system of supervision, there has been a fundamental reordering of the relations between the state and the local authorities.33 One of the features of this change is that there is now a great deal of diversity across France in the configuration of relationships between the political and administrative systems and the role of the prefect also varies from department to department.34 Although to some extent the prefect has always been constrained by powerful local politicians, the notables, this is now even more the case since the transfer of executive authority to the presidents of the regional and departmental councils. These presidents now relate with the prefects much more on the basis of equality rather than of subordination.

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Territorial administration and the ‘reform of the state’ To what extent have the 1982 decentralization reforms led to a reform of the state and how much of the old system of public administration has been retained? Before 1982, ‘la déconcentration administrative’ (‘administrative decentralization’) was often used as a substitute for political decentralization and was, in fact, an instrument of the centrally-driven territorial development and regional policies of the 1960s and 1970s. With the 1982 reforms, ‘la déconcentration’ became a key aspect of the reforms as an instrument of political decentralization and is seen as part of a programme of administrative modernization. By the 1990s this had evolved into ‘la réforme de l’Etat’.35 This implies a much more radical process and aims to transform France from a ‘centralized unitary state’ into a ‘decentralized unitary state’, as expressed in the change of the Constitution in 2003.36 Does this mean that there has been a change of regime in France? Has the Fifth Republic established by De Gaulle evolved into another kind of state? This may be going too far and the reforms might simply mean no more than that the rhetoric of ‘state reform’ is used by the French political and administrative elites as a way of retaining the illusion that there still exists a single system – the ‘State’ – which is being reformed rather than the reality of a multiplicity of incoherent changes which have been the result of the decentralization reforms.37 In other words, it may mask what some French analysts have described as ‘the crisis of French public administration’, characterized by increasing fragmentation and incoherence.38 Rather than interpreting the administrative changes in France as a ‘big bang’ reform of the state, we should see them as happening in an incrementalist and piece-meal manner, but leading, at a certain point, to quite a radical transformation. Thus, the changes are the latest phases of a process of administrative adaptation, which France, like other modern states, has had to carry out in response to the changing circumstances of the economy, of society and of new emergent political forces.39 Already, in 1945, the École Nationale d’Administration (ENA) was founded by Michel Debré to produce a group of highly trained administrators capable of responding to the challenges of adapting the administration to these changing circumstances.40 Although the énarques embodied a peculiarly Gallic approach to public administration, they were not immune to learning from outside examples, even from the United States. During the period of the Trente Glorieuses, for example, when the French Welfare State was being built on the basis of post-war economic recovery and expansion, there were some attempts in France to adopt managerial techniques that were being developed in the United States.41 During the early part of this period, in the 1950s and 1960s, the emphasis was on the ‘nationalization’ of public policy and ensuring a certain uniformity of administration and service delivery across the entire French territory. Thus, the North American public management model was adopted by the French in line with the consistent

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Jacobin and Napoleonic traditions of statehood. Jean Monnet’s National Plan is the best-known expression of this approach. The national planning approach meant a high degree of central coordination with the ENA-trained technocrats firmly in control of the reins of administrative power. Although the Fourth Republic was marked by a high degree of political instability, it was also a period of administrative stability and growth thanks to the competence of these administrators. Although there was a distinctively French approach to public administration and policy inculcated in the ENA and the other grandes écoles like the Polytechnique or Sciences Po, Paris, the French administrative elites, as noted above and contrary to a commonly-held view which sees them as rather chauvinistic and inward-looking, were also open to outside influence, including from the United States. In 1968, for example, the French government adopted the system known as ‘rationalisation des choix budgétaires’ (RCB)’ inspired by the American ‘Planning Programming Budgeting System’ (PPBS) which used ‘rationality’ techniques such as Cost-Benefit Analysis.42 This approach continued until it was abandoned in the 1980s. It is evident that France, in common with other advanced capitalist states, faced the problem of managing the expansion of the state and public services characteristic of the Welfare State and economic boom, which began in the 1950s and lasted until the 1970s.43 The second part of the Trente Glorieuses were marked by a crisis of this highly centralized and uniform system of public administration. The crisis burst into the open with the ‘events’ of May ’6844 and eventually led to the departure of General De Gaulle as President of the Republic in April 1969, even if the overt reason was the botched referendum already referred to on several occasions in this book. His successor as President, Georges Pompidou, appointed Jacques Chaban-Delmas as prime minister and, in a famous speech delivered to the National Assembly in September 1969, the new prime minister responded to the malaise felt by many in French society by launching the project entitled ‘La Nouvelle Société’. Chaban-Delmas strongly criticized the excessively centralized state because of its ‘stalled’ nature (using the title of Michel Crozier’s book ‘la société bloquée’) and advocated a more open and decentralized system. Valéry Giscard d’Estaing and his followers took up some of these themes when Giscard succeeded Pompidou as president in 1974. The Giscardians proposed a set of twopronged reforms. First, they advocated strengthening the powers of local politicians through greater political decentralization. Second, they wished to give citizens greater power to control the activities of the administration. Even before Giscard was elected president, when he was still just a member of the government of Pierre Messmer, the post of Médiateur de la République, the French equivalent of the Ombudsman, was created in line with these ideas.45 Several other laws which aimed to make the administration more transparent and accountable to citizens were passed in the 1970s.46 Although, in some respects, Giscard’s presidency was marked by authoritar-

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ianism47 and alienation from public opinion, in others it involved an increasing liberalization of French society, for example, with the passage of laws legalizing abortion and making divorce easier. It was also Giscard who, with the German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt, laid the basis in the late 1970s for the relaunch of European integration. But this was also the period when the Welfare State system had entered into crisis and the Keynesian economic expansion was running out of steam with growing economic stagnation, high levels of both inflation and unemployment. Giscard was a social reformer, but an economic liberal, and proposed market solutions to these problems and this further alienated him from much French public opinion, marked as this was by the French state interventionist tradition. Giscard’s failure to resolve some of the problems of adapting the state to contemporary social and economic realities was among the principal reasons for his defeat by François Mitterrand in the 1981 presidential election.48 Although Giscard and his followers had initially advocated territorial reform along the lines of political decentralization, after seven years of his presidency, little had changed in this regard and it was left to the socialists who succeeded to bring to fruition some of his ideas. The socialists initiated two principal sets of reforms. The first was to try to reverse Giscard’s application of liberal policies by the adoption of a neoKeynesian approach to the economy and by expanding social services. The second was the decentralization reforms that are the major theme of this book and whose details have been covered in previous chapters. In this chapter we will concentrate on the administrative dimension of the reforms. The two sets of reforms were not necessarily out of harmony with each other but one – the attempted expansion of the state and the economy – implied a certain way of approaching the other – decentralization as administrative democratization and modernization. By 1983, the socialist government, under pressure from the international community, which was now firmly wedded to neo-liberalism, had shelved the first reforms but continued with decentralization. But the change in tack with regard to the social and economic policy also implied a different understanding of the meaning of decentralization, which now became part of a wider reform of the state administration. The 1982 decentralization reforms had already injected a new impulse into the ongoing reform of public administration as they set out to bring government closer to the citizen, to democratize it, and to make it work more smoothly and efficiently. According to Jean-Benoît Albertini, however, the reforms, which at first simply aimed at ‘administrative modernization’, eventually evolved into the ‘reform of the state’.49 This evolution happened in three phases: • 1981–1984: the numbers working in the public sector grew, as the socialist government sought to implement new expanding social policies – in fact, this was the vain attempt to return to the glorious years of the Welfare State;

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• 1984–1989: economic constraints halted this policy of expansion with the result that austerity measures began to be applied to the public sector as well as to other policy areas – it was during this period that the socialists were forced to return to some of the goals of the Giscardian reformers and link once again with the notion of ‘administrative modernization’; • 1989 until the present: ‘administrative modernization’ is deepened and extended becoming a distinct policy in its own right and then transforms into ‘reform of the state’. In each of these phases there has been an attempt to bring about ‘administrative modernization’, but the term is understood differently in each phase. In the first phase, the concern was with bringing administration closer to citizens and involving the latter more closely by means of the decentralization reforms. During this period, the most important legislative step was the creation of a ‘territorial civil service’ (fonction publique territoriale), alongside the two other administrations – the national civil service and the hospital sector.50 The alternative was to create a single civil service for all three groups, but it was thought that creating a separate territorial civil service would strengthen the decentralization process by giving the local authorities a skilled and professional work force and, at the same time, improve the statute of the local administrators. Nevertheless, the three services have a certain unity and equality as they were set up by the same two laws in 1983 and 1984,51 which ensured that local administrators had the same conditions of status, remuneration and career prospects as those at the national level.52 Furthermore, administrators can move from one branch to the other without disadvantage to their careers. Alongside these general conditions, each branch has specific regulations adapted to their particular functions and activities. In practice, it was more difficult than expected to implement these measures.53 This was because of changes of the political parties in power (and therefore changes in the underlying political philosophy of the administrative reforms), because of the constitutional difficulties raised by the Constitutional Court (the conseil constitutional), administrative difficulties in creating a new statute for the territorial administrators (250 regulations have been necessary), and the length of time taken to implement the measures. It was during these early years of the first wave of decentralization reforms that the notion of ‘modernizing’ the state was developed among the political and administrative elites.54 During the second of Albertini’s three phases, when the socialist government began to adopt austerity measures, there came a new emphasis on ‘managerialism’ in the public sector inspiration by the New Public Management approach then being developed in the Anglo-Saxon world but given a distinctively French expression.55 New instruments of public management such as the cercles de qualité were developed in the late 1980s.56 In 1989, the government led by Michel

174 Subnational Government

Rocard developed a policy entitled Public Service Renewal (Renouveau du Service Public) which involved reducing regulation, the development of the contractual approach and less ear-marked grants, all centred on the creation of centres de responsabilité, which were an attempt to increasing the accountability (la responsabilité) of public servants. What was happening here was, in fact, a reconceptualization of the role of the state itself. Prime Minister Rocard expressed it in these terms: ‘ce qu’on appelle la crise est en train d’ébranler [le] vieux dogme … qui consiste à croire que la realisation d’une société plus juste passe par l’administration et le commandement politique et suppose l’Etat comme agent exclusive … l’enjeu tient … à la transformation des rapports de pouvoir dans l’administration où la logique de responsabilité doit prendre le pas sur la logique de procédure’ (‘what is known as the crisis is responsible for the abandonment of an old dogma […] which claims that the achievement of a more just society can only come from the administration and through top-down political direction with the state as the only actor… what is at stake is the transformation of the power relations within the administration and the passage from a logic of formalism to a logic of accountability’).57 At the same time, and this is the specifically French approach to implementing New Public Management, these attempted improvements did not challenge the basic principles underlying the state, which (unlike the Thatcherite neo-liberal model) recognized the specific character and validity of public service.58 The French approach was not to reduce the power of the public sector by swingeing cuts, as had occurred in the United Kingdom under Mrs Thatcher, but to change the administrative culture and values by encouraging civil servants to take ‘ownership’ of the reforms.59 At the same time, Rocard’s approach was unlike the traditional French approach to reform in that, rather than simply applying the reforms across the board in a top-down manner, his approach relied on an incrementalist and experimental method which was something quite new in French public administration. During this second phase, ‘la déconcentration administrative’ became a key element in this new approach and was explicitly linked to the 1982 political decentralization reforms. A 1989 circular from the prime minister asked the regional prefects to draft ‘projets d’administration déconcentré’ for the state’s field services in help prepare a ‘Charte interministérielle de la déconcentration’.60 During the third phase, from 1989 until the present, the policy of ‘state modernization’ evolved into what became known as ‘state reform’.61 The modernization process has itself become increasingly institutionalized with an emphasis on déconcentration. In 1992, the ATR law on the territorial administration of the state significantly modified the administrative landscape.62 This law upgraded the territorial administration by placing it on the same level as the national. Furthermore, there was a symbolic change in the title of the ‘state field services’ (‘services extérieurs de l’Etat’) to ‘decentralized public services (‘services déconcentrés’). The 1992 law also confirmed

Administering Territorial Governance: The State Strikes Back? 175

the principle of subsidiarity. The principles underlying the law were, later in the year, elaborated in a Charter of Administrative Decentralization (‘Charte de la déconcentration’)63 which distinguishes the functions of the national and the territorial levels of administration. The former have the task of developing the broad principles and conceptions of public policy, while the latter have the task of implementing these. The Charter defines more fully the activities of each level of government (region, department and municipality) in the light of this distinction. These ideas were developed according to the political philosophy of Michel Rocard, who had long been an advocate of decentralization and autogestion. But a change of government, with fellow socialist Pierre Bérégovoy replacing Rocard as prime minister, did not result in a radical change of direction. Nor did a change of government from left to right with the formation of the Balladur government in March 1993. The new government set up, for a period of three years, the Comité pour la réorganisation et la déconcentration des administrations (CRDA). The CRDA examined the problem of administrative decentralization from the point of view of the users of public services. In a report submitted to the minister of public administration in 1995, it identified a number of improvements that should be made: proper evaluation of the existing reforms; evaluation of the experiments carried out; inter-ministerial harmonization, since several ministeries were concerned and different kinds of territory involved (rural, urban, etc.). Alain Juppé became prime minister in 1995, and his government accepted these conclusions but now wished to reflect more deeply on the role and functions of the state itself. The Comités Interministériels pour la Réforme de l’Etat (CIRE) were created in 1995 and this strengthened the notion that what was involved was a reform of the state itself. Senior civil servants, involved in the national Plan, set up a number of special committees during this time, which began to examine the ‘state’ as an object of reform and to develop a distinctive ‘doctrine’ of reform, adapting, as happened during the Rocardian premiership, New Public Management approaches to the principles underlying the French state.64 In September 1995, the government set up, for a period of three years, the Commissariat à la Réforme de l’Etat, staffed by senior civil servants and under the direct responsibility of the prime minister. In 1998, this was replaced by the Délégation Interministérielle à la Réforme de l’Etat (DIRE) situated within the Ministry of Public Administration (Ministère de la Fonction Publique). The ‘reform of the state’ thus became a central preoccupation of successive French governments of both right and left, all of whom adopted it but also adapted it to their particular circumstances and ideological predilections. What has emerged from this rethinking of the nature of the state is a doctrine whereby the state has two different but complementary functions: on the one hand, strategic planning (policy formulation but also control and evaluation); on the other, the day to day implementation and management of policy decisions. Previously, the French state tended to

176 Subnational Government

confuse the two functions, with the result that the central state became closely involved in the day to day administration to the detriment of both the centre and the field services. This does not mean that the process has been entirely smooth. On the contrary, the whole period of the development of this new doctrine of the ‘reform of the state’ has been characterized by rivalry among three different ministries both for control of the reform process and to ensure that they retained their own hold over the field services. The Ministry of Finance tried to exercise control through its control of the budgetary process, the Ministry of the Interior through its control of the local authorities and decentralization, and the Ministry of Public Administration through its control of déconcentration.

Acte II De La Decentralisation: administrative aspects Nevertheless, despite these difficulties, Jean-Pierre Raffarin, who formed a right-wing government in May 2002, continued the transformation of the French state with ‘Act II’ of the decentralization reforms one of whose principal scenes was the constitutional recognition of France as a ‘decentralized unitary Republic’. The whole process of decentralization reform, relaunched in the 1990s, culminated in a series of laws passed after the turn of the century. Perhaps the most important of these was the constitutional law of March 2003, which made a number of important modifications to the Constitution the most important of which was the recognition of the ‘decentralized organization of the Republic’.65 Two other laws passed in August 2003 applied some of the new constitutional dispositions with regard to local authorities. The first gave the local authorities the right to experiment and defined the conditions in which this might happen66 and the other dealt with local referendums.67 The legislative programme implementing the changes in the Constitution continued with a law on local finances, which gave a constitutional guarantee of local finance and defined certain minimum finances.68 Another, passed in August 2004, specifies an increase in the competences transferred from the central state to the local authorities and the financial and personnel resources which are also transferred to enable the local authorities to exercise these competences.69 This is not to say that this legislation had a smooth passage to completion. First, it had to confront the obstacle of examination by the Constitutional Court, which verified its constitutionality. Although the court rejected some parts of the proposed legislation, it gave its approval to most of it. Second, there was the need for a majority in both the Senate and the National Assembly. The August 2004 bill on the transfer of competences, for example, had a difficult passage and encountered a great deal of opposition in the Assembly. Finally, there is the ‘reception’ of the laws by key stake-holders such as the local authorities themselves. Again, it was this bill

Administering Territorial Governance: The State Strikes Back? 177

which has had a frosty reception, since many local authorities have complained that the resources transferred are not sufficient to exercise the new competences they are being asked to undertake. Nevertheless, despite these objections, it might be remarked that Act II of the decentralization reforms is the culmination of a process which has radically reformed the nature of the French state and has completed its transformation from a classical unitary state into a decentralized unitary state. The legislative reforms have, in turn, important administrative consequences.

The territorial administration As we noted above, France now has three distinct bodies of public administration: the national administration of the state; the hospitals; and the territorial administration. It is the last of these three branches that most concerns us here. This is represented by two bodies at the national level: the Conseil supérieur de la function publique territoriale (CSFPT) and the Centre national de la function publique territoriale (CNFPT).70 The CSFPT is comprised of 20 local politicians and 20 trade union representatives. It is an advisory body which assists the minister responsible for local authorities in any legislation or studies in this field. It also discusses the statute of local administrators as well as being responsible for studies such as the statistical analysis of the local authorities and analyses of patterns of employment within local authorities. The CNFPT is a national organization but with regional offices. It is responsible for the training of territorial administrators and also organizes some of the recruitment competitions for certain categories of administrator. Besides these two organizations, there are also the Centres de gestion de la function publique territoriale which provide management training for local authorities with fewer than 350 employees, for which membership is obligatory. Although the notion of a single territorial administration might give the impression of a certain unity and uniformity, there is, in fact, a wide variety of employers of territorial administrators. Besides the local authorities themselves – regions, departments and municipalities – there are the various inter-municipal associations but also bodies such as the organismes publics locaux à caractère particulier (such as the HLM offices, the CNFPT regional offices, etc.), the organismes privés d’administration locale (for example, dealing with rural development, social exclusion or cultural matters), the établissements publics industriels et commerciaux (for example, bodies involved in planning or construction at the local level). It has been estimated that, in all, these amount to over 80 000 employers in all of France. Table 7.1 illustrates the shift in the balance, at least with regard to numerical proportions, among the three administrations, with the national administration declining from over two-thirds of the total in 1969 to less than a

178 Subnational Government

1969 (March)

1976 (average for the year)

1983 (January)

1989 (January)

1995 (January)

1996 (January)

1997 (January)

1998 (January)

Table 7.1 The evolution of the relative position in percentage terms of the three administrative systems in France (1969–1998)

National Administration

67.8

64.6

60.3

58.6

49.3

49.2

49.1

49.0

Territorial Administration

20.4

21.7

23.6

24.9

32.0

32.1

32.2

32.4

Hospital Sector

11.8

13.7

16.1

16.5

18.7

18.7

18.7

18.6

Source: Ministère de l’Intérieur, Les agents des collectivités locales. Paris: Direction générale des Collectivités locales, 2001, p. 30.

half in 1998 while the territorial administration expanded from one-fifth in 1969 to nearly a third in 1998. Table 7.2 shows the evolution between 1984 and 1998 within the different parts of the territorial administration. First, there is an overall growth of 21 per cent, with over 1.25 million administrators employed. Second, those employed by the regions increased by a massive 430 per cent, even if, in absolute numbers, these remain quite small. This reflects the growing importance of the region and the increasing number of tasks it is asked to play. A similar growth rate of 20 per cent may be observed in those employed by the municipalities and municipal institutions. In fact, the municipalities account for the great majority of territorial administrators with over a million. The numbers of those working for the departments and departmental institutions, on the other hand have remained quite stable, with a very modest increase of just under three per cent, while there has been a decline in those working for other institutions (such as the CNFPT and the HLMs). The increase in the number of territorial administrators has especially benefited those permanent employees (titulaires) whose numbers have increased by 38.8 per cent while those on renewable contracts (non-titulaires also known as vacataires) have experienced a decrease of 8.4 per cent.71 This overview gives a useful picture of the administrative dimension of the decentralization reforms, the new roles assigned to subnational authorities and the corresponding modification of the civil service with the decline in numbers of the national administration and the significant increases at the subnational level. All of this translates in administrative terms the reform of the French state itself outlined in this chapter. By

Table 7.2

The evolution of the numbers of territorial administrators according to the type of employer (1984–1998) 1984

1988

1,111,589

1,182,229

1,692

3,860

5,907

8,031

8,577

8,979

+12.7%

+430.7%

Departments and departmental institutions

196,483

183,042

185,509

193,619

196,709

201,858

+0.2%

+2.7%

Municipalities and municipalinstitutions

838,356

885,980

958,698

990,287

999,341 1,007,755

+1.3%

+20.2%

Type of Employer

All local authorities Regions

Intermunicipalinstitutions Other institutions (CNFPT, CDG, OPHLM)

Total

75,058

1992

1996

1,269,392 1,317,742

1997

1998

Annual progress +1.4%

1,333,639 1,350,186

Overall progress (14 years) +21,5%

76,442

87,289

97,614

100,862

103,912

+2.4%

+20.2%

32,905

31,989

28,191

28,150

27,682

–1.7%

–15.9%

Source: Ministère de l’Intérieur, Les agents des collectivités locales. Paris: Direction générale des Collectivités locales, 2001, p. 77.

179

180 Subnational Government

themselves, however, the figures do not give a picture of how it works in practice and whether the reforms have provided a solution to some of the major problems of governance facing the French state, like all other developed states. To this problem we now turn.

The contradictions of French territorial administration The French, like other advanced democratic states, have been struggling for the past 25 years to balance a number of conflicting pressures in their politico-administrative system. The necessity to maintain the unity and coherence of the state needs to be affirmed in the face of the centrifugal and fragmenting tendencies of decentralization. The traditional system of vertical hierarchy and command exists alongside the new system of horizontal and equal co-ordination. The necessity of effective and efficient public management needs to be counterbalanced by the equally insistent demands for public participation and sensitivity to ‘users’. This is the old conundrum of reconciling effective government with democracy. But there are specifically French problems as well, not least the phenomenon of the ‘millefeuille institutionnel’, which refers to the habit of creating new institutions of government and administration without abolishing the previously existing ones. This overlapping and contradictory nature of French administrative institutions has consequences both for the civil servants themselves and for the ‘users’ of the system. A 2003 report,72 drawn up by Jean Courtial of the Conseil d’Etat for the minister of public administration, highlighted the problem of reconciling the notion of a unified civil service, with common conditions of employment over the whole territory and the principle of the free administration of local authorities by themselves. This meant that the employment conditions of territorial administrators were not as coherent and universally applicable as they should be. The same report also pointed out that the complex system of territorial administration made it difficult for the ‘users’ of the system to understand it to the degree necessary to make full use of it. The implication of the report was that a certain amount of simplification was necessary in order to make the system both more efficient (avoiding the dysfunction of overlapping institutions) and more transparent. Given the history of French institutional development which has been examined throughout this book, it is unlikely that decisive action will be taken along these lines in the near future.

Conclusions This survey of the evolution of the territorial dimension of French public administration shows that quite dramatic changes have occurred over the period of just over 20 years since the 1982 decentralization reforms. The

Administering Territorial Governance: The State Strikes Back? 181

French Republic has been transformed from the unitary state par excellence into a self-proclaimed decentralized unitary state with a decentralized administration. The reform process has been extensive and has been given constitutional recognition in 2003. This change in the Constitution also strengthened the financial and legal position of the local authorities, especially the regions, and recognized the principle of subsidiarity. But perhaps the most dramatic change has been in the way in which the role and functions of the state and its administration, and relations between the state and subnational authorities, have been conceptualized. The central state is now to adopt a more strategic role in policy-making while leaving to the local authorities the task of implementing its strategic decisions. This has led to the creation of separate, but in theory equal, administrations – the state administration and the territorial administration – in order to carry out this implementation. The underlying basis of state-local relations is now a ‘contractual’ one, and both sides of the contract are seen as ‘partners’. Undoubtedly, there is some degree of fiction in this since the state can never really be an equal partner with the others, given the vast resources that it has at its command. We also saw in the chapter on the regions how the state has found it difficult to honour the promises it made in the contracts signed with the regions. Nevertheless, we are now very far from the model of the state that was characteristic of France from the time of Napoleon until 1982. But, on the negative side, one of the consequences of these reforms is the loss of a certain coherence and uniformity across the French territory and attempts have been made to rectify this through greater inter-ministerial co-ordination of policies – a French version of ‘joined-up government’. Indeed, Oliver Nay interprets the state and administrative reforms of the 1990s as attempts by the state to recapture some of the control it lost with the decentralization reforms.73 Nay illustrates this by analyzing the way in which the prefects, the local administrators and the local politicians have vied with each other for control of the processes by which EU structural funds arrive in France and are administered. In the end, he concludes that the real winners are the prefects although there is a great variety in the outcomes of this struggle across the French regions. None of this has really solved the problem of reconciling internal cohesion and solidarity with the equally valid principle of local autonomy. The complexity and resulting opacity of the administration today makes it difficult for the average citizen to relate to it in a positive way. Indeed, the citizen is probably the great absentee from the reforms, despite all the efforts to make administration ‘user-friendly’ and to involve these users. The reforms have been driven by the elites both at the national and local levels and have been influenced by outside factors such as new trends in public management reform and the demands made by membership of the European Union. A key issue in deciding how the politics and administration will work is their financial underpinning. To this we now turn.

8 Paying For It All

Introduction Political decentralization and administrative deconcentration are meaningless and will not lead to genuine local autonomy unless local authorities possess the resources necessary to exercise the responsibilities assigned to them. Financial resources are a key element among the different kinds of resources that are necessary and which also include constitutional, legal and human resources. Article 9 of the European Charter for Local Selfgovernment1 states that ‘Local authorities shall be entitled, within national economic policy, to adequate financial resources of their own, of which they may dispose freely within the framework of their powers’ and that ‘Local authorities’ financial resources shall be commensurate with the responsibilities provided for by the constitution and the law’. The same article stipulates that the majority of the local authorities’ financial resources should come from local resources and that, when they come in the form of central government grants, these should be general or ‘block’ grants rather than earmarked for specific purposes. All of this is designed to enhance the local authorities’ autonomy as the basis of the exercise of political and administrative autonomy. Although France has signed but is the only one among the large member states of the Council of Europe not to have ratified the Charter,2 it does actually put into practice some of these stipulations. Furthermore, some of its provisions3 have been incorporated into the French Constitution with the 2003 constitutional revision. Nevertheless, although the principles of local autonomy underlying both the provisions of the Charter and the revision of the French Constitution are fairly clear, their implementation is much more difficult than might seem at first sight. The principle of local autonomy must be reconciled with the principle of national sovereignty since it is the central government which has the final say over the fiscal affairs of the state and must have an overview of the common good. In other words, the principle of local autonomy is not absolute but must be exercised in the context of the 182

Paying For It All 183

nation-state as a whole. This is an important issue both from the point of view of the theory of the state and the theory of democracy since the question of taxation is central to the latter in the sense that ‘there is no taxation without representation’. The question becomes, then: to what extent should local authorities at different sub-national levels raise and control their own taxes or be funded by grants from central government in ways that they cannot control? Different countries have found different solutions to this question.4 The Scandinavian countries rely heavily on a local income tax and, in Sweden, this is the only tax that the majority of Swedes pay.5 Local authorities in Anglo-Saxon countries such as the UK, the US, Australia and New Zealand rely heavily on property taxes and, in the UK, this tax, known as the council tax, is the only form of local taxation. But in most countries, there is a variety of forms of local taxation and this is the case in the Latin countries, Spain, Italy and France, all of which have a variety of local taxes.6 We might situate France, therefore, as a ‘middlerange’ country with regard to its system of local taxes. With regard to the amount of funding that comes from central government, French local authorities receive less than half of their funding in the form of grants, despite France’s reputation as a highly centralized country with an interventionist state. This is compared to the UK where 75 per cent, and the Netherlands where 80 per cent of funding comes in the form of grants. Of course, an important issue here is whether this funding is earmarked for specific projects defined by the central authorities or whether it is in the form of block grants over which the local authorities have some discretion. The general tendency across Europe and elsewhere has been to reduce the amount of ear-marked funding and this is in line with the European Charter’s recommendations. The French have also followed this general tendency, although grants are only one source of its funding.7

Local finances as part of general public expenditure Local authorities’ finances are part of the overall national budget of a country and it is useful to see what proportion of this they have. In 2006, total public expenditure in France reached 192 billion euros or 11 per cent of GDP.8 This represented an increase of 5.1 per cent compared to 2005. Local expenditure is divided between current expenditure, which in 2006 came to a total of 165.5 billion euros (compared to 157.5 billion in 2005), and capital expenditure, which came to 47.6 billion euros (compared to 45.3 billion in 2005). It is again useful to place these figures in the broader context of the situation in other European countries bearing in mind the caveat that it is notoriously difficult to compare fiscal relationships across countries. Table 8.1 shows that, in 2000, local expenditure as part of GDP in France was 9.8 per cent which, once again, placed it in the ‘middle range’ of the EU member states alongside the UK (9.5 per cent) and Austria

184 Subnational Government Table 8.1

Local Expenditure/GDP (% in year 2000)

Denmark Sweden Finland Netherlands Spain Italy Ireland France United Kingdom Austria Germany Belgium Portugal Luxembourg Greece European Union

30.6 23.9 17.3 15.2 14.2 13.5 11.7 9.8 9.5 9.4 7.4 6.6 5.7 5.7 2.2 11.0

Source: Dexia (2003), p. 34.

(9.4 per cent).9 As might be expected, it was much higher in the Scandinavian countries and the Netherlands where local authorities have a wide range of responsibilities and much lower in Belgium, Luxembourg and Greece. The low figures for Austria, Germany and Belgium relate to the share of GDP of the local authorities rather than the sub-federal share as a whole. That is, they do not take into account the German and Austrian Länder and the Belgian regions and communities. If these are taken into account then the figures are 30 per cent in Germany, 20 per cent in Austria and 26 per cent in Belgium. The current figure for France is 11.7 per cent but the data is not available at present to see whether this means it has converged with the EU average or whether the average has also risen. It is probable that the former is the case as French local authorities’ share of GDP has been steadily rising in recent years as a result of the continuing transfer of financial resources to take account of the ongoing transfer of competences with the new phase of decentralization. The important points to note here are that France is not an outlier, like Greece or the Scandinavian states but typical of a unitary state (like the UK), albeit one that is decentralizing, and that its local authorities’ share of GDP is increasing, which is a sign that the central state is to some extent respecting the commitments to transfer financial resources in line with the decentralization process.10 With regard to France, we can break down local expenditure (Table 8.2) into the different amounts spent by the municipalities, the departments and the regions and this gives us some idea of the relative importance of each of these levels in the overall system.

Paying For It All 185 Table 8.2 Breakdown of local expenditure and revenues by level of government in 2003 (in billions of euros)

Total of the local authorities

Inter-municipal associations (including both those with tax-raising powers and those without them)

Municipalities

The State

Departments

Regions

Level of Government

Expenditure 280.8

15.84

45.95

78.44

44.28

184.1

Revenues 224.11

15.73

46.34

79.51

47.66

189.24

Source: Ministry of the Interior, Collectivités locales en chiffres en 2006. http://www.dgcl.interieur.gouv.fr/Publications/CL_en_chiffres_2006/05_chapitre_3.pdf

This snapshot, taken in 2003, shows that the municipalities have the largest proportion of finance which is not surprising given their vast number and considering that they are responsible for the delivery of a number of major services. The departments are the next biggest and this is related to their responsibility for delivering some very expensive services related to health and social welfare. The regions, fewer in number and with less onerous charges have the least share in the overall distribution of finances. But it is interesting to note that the inter-municipal associations, both those which have their own tax-raising powers and those which do not, have a share which is almost equal to that of the departments. In order to capture some of the dynamics of these proportions it will be useful to Table 8.3

Trends in local government finances in billions of euros (1998–2003) 1998

1999

2000

2001

Total Expenditure

118.44

122.31

124.83

127.97

133.76 140.23

Percentage change

+1.6% (since 1997)

+0.7%

+2.3% +3.2%

127.63

134.83 141.58

Total Revenues Percentage increase

118.39 +0.9% (since 1997)

+3.5% 123.43 +4.4%

+0.7% 124.93 –0.1%

+0.4%

2002

+3.4%

Source: Ministry of the Interior, Collectivités locales en chiffres en 2006. http://www.dgcl.interieur.gouv.fr/Publications/CL_en_chiffres_2006/05_chapitre_3.pdf

2003

+3.4%

186 Subnational Government

look at trends over a number of years as presented in Table 8.3 which shows a steady increase over the last few years and (except for the year 2000) revenues have been for the most part just ahead of expenditures. Table 8.4 shows the breakdown of expenditure and revenues among the different levels of local government between 1994 and 2003. It is noteworthy that the regions’ finances increased quite considerably in 2002, a result of the transfer of competences to them. Table 8.4 Division of local finances among the different levels of government in millions of euros (1994–2003) 1994 Total Expenditure Percentage change (%) Total Revenues Percentage change (%) Total Expenditure Percentage change (%) Total Revenues Percentage change (%) Total Expenditure Percentage change (%) Total Revenues Percentage change (%)

1995

1996

1997

1998

1999

2000

2001

2002

Municipalities 66 006 66 166 67 356 68 199 70 428 72 266 74 663 76 053 76 475 78 440 +4.9% +0.2%

+1.8% +1.3% +3.3% +2.6% +3.3% +1.9%

+0.6% +2.6%

66 772 65 403 67 942 68 698 70 084 73 139 74 630 75 974 77 218 79 508 +5.9% –2.1%

+3.9% +1.1% +2.0% +4.4% +2.0% +1.8%

+1.6% +3.0%

Departments 33 598 33 511 34 794 35 488 36 300 37 699 37 891 39 226 42 314 45 952 +6.3% –0.3%

+3.8% +2.0% +2.3% +3.9% +0.5% +3.5%

+7.9% +8.6%

33 837 33 497 34 920 35 765 36 413 37 964 38 003 38 965 42 432 46 336 +6.8% –1.0%

+4.2% +2.4% +1.8% +4.3% +0.1% +2.5%

+8.9% +9.2%

Regions 10 159 10 382 11 250 11 928 11 712 12 342 12 281 12 688 14 975 15 839 +6.4% +2.2%

+8.4% +6.0% –1.8% +5.4% –0.5% +3.3% +18.0% +5.8%

10 215 10 316 11 429 11 860 11 896 12 331 12 296 12 696 15 183 15 731 +6.0% +1.0% +10.8% +3.8% +0.3% +3.7% –0.3% +3.3% +19.6% +3.6%

Source: Source: Ministry of the Interior, Collectivités locales en chiffres en 2006. http://www.dgcl.interieur.gouv.fr/Publications/CL_en_chiffres_2006/05_chapitre_3.pdf

Table 8.5

2003

Local expenditure in 1999, in billions of euros

Local sector as a whole 122.5 Source: Dexia (2002), p. 134.

Municipalities

Departments

Regions

68.2

32.9

11.3

Paying For It All 187 Table 8.6

Local expenditure by type (in %) in 1999 Local sector as a whole

Municipalities

Operating expenditure

60

67

64

43

Of which staff cost

25

34

11

3

Capital expenditure (excluding capital repayment)

25

21

26

45

Of which equipment expenditure

19

19

14

11

Debt annuity

15

12

10

12

Interest on debt

5

4

3

4

Capital repayment Total

Departments

Regions

10

8

7

8

100

100

100

100

Source: Dexia (2002), p. 134.

Tables 8.5 and 8.6 give a detailed breakdown of the amount and the proportional division of local expenditure in 1999.

Local authorities’ revenues These global figures, while useful for seeing the overall picture and for capturing some of the general trends tell us relatively little about the extent to which French local authorities have real fiscal autonomy or not. To evaluate this means examining the source of their revenues. As mentioned above, these may be divided into three broad categories: (i) own resources – local taxes, fees, and borrowing; (ii) central government grants which may be either ear-marked for specific purposes or may used at the discretion of the local authorities; and (iii) European funds. The key issue for local autonomy is the extent to which local authorities have control over the raising and using of these different sources of funding. As a general rule, local autonomy is higher when, on the one hand, there is a higher level of own resources and when local authorities can fix the bases and rates of these and, on the other, they have a high level of discretion over central grants, that is, when the latter are more general than specific. The general trend across Europe in recent years has been towards increasing the levels of local fiscal autonomy although there are also some counter trends to this so that the general picture is somewhat confusing.11 Thus, according to the Council of Europe, there has been a decline in own resources and an

188 Subnational Government

increase in central government grants but these grants are less specific giving local authorities greater say over their use. France has not completely followed this trend as local own resources have been increasing and, after an initial upsurge of central grants following the decentralization reforms in the 1980s and again with the second wave of decentralization in the 1990s, these have tended to level off. The following sections will examine in somewhat more detail these different sources of local authority funding in France. These analyses will be followed by some reflections on the implications of these trends for regional and local democracy.

Own resources French local authorities have several ‘own resources’ of revenue: local taxes, charges and fees, and borrowing. The most important of these are local taxes which include the famous four taxes known as the ‘quatre vieilles’12 and a number of other taxes some of which are compulsory and others optional. Local taxes French local authorities have a constitutional right to raise local taxes (impôts) and, in some instances, to define their bases and their rates, but they may not create, modify or abolish them. This is strictly the domain of the national parliament and constitutes a clear example of the exercise of national sovereignty.13 Nevertheless, these local taxes give the local authorities a real autonomy and are the basis for the exercise of local democracy. They fall into two categories: direct and indirect taxes, of which the first category make up about three-quarters of the total. The principal direct taxes are the ‘quatre vieilles’ so-called because their origins go back to the French Revolution14 although at that time they were national rather than local taxes. The Revolutionaries wished to abolish the system of special privileges for the nobility and clergy that had existed during the Ancien Régime and to implement the principle of equality. This they did on 4 August 1789. This was done by imposing a general tax on everyone and by abolishing indirect taxes which were thought especially to punish the weaker members of society. The ideas of the Physiocrats15 dominated the thinking of the reformers and particularly the physicocratic idea that the source of wealth was landed property and it was this which should be taxed.16 The ‘quatre vieilles’ proved to be insufficient to cover national state expenditure and, indeed, unsuited to the changing nature of French society which was slowly becoming more industrialized throughout the 19th century. Gradually other taxes were either restored, as in the case of indirect taxes, or introduced for the first time, as, for example, income tax which was introduced during the First World War. In 1917, a progressive income tax was introduced and applied to everyone in the state and the

Paying For It All 189

four taxes were transferred to the local authorities and still remain the basis of local taxation. Throughout the first half of the 20th century, however, the system of local taxation was severely criticized for its ineffectiveness, its archaism, its inequalities, its excessive nature, etc.17 But it was not until an ordinance of 1959 that the first steps towards a significant reform of local taxation were undertaken by the Gaullist Prime Minister Antoine Pinay as part of a general package of fiscal reforms.18 These reforms were the first in a series19 which led to the creation of the present-day ‘quatre vieilles’ (that is, despite their name, they are not the original four taxes created at the Revolution): 1. The property tax on buildings (la taxe foncière sur les propriétés bâties) this and the following tax are paid by the property owners, whether these are companies or private individuals; 2. the property tax on land (la taxe foncière sur les propriétés non bâties); 3. the residence tax (la taxe d’habitation) paid by residents and based on the rental value of the property; 4. the business tax (la taxe professionnelle) which is based on both the fixed assets rental value (constructions, buildings, land, equipment) and on the payroll.20 The proportional contribution of each of the four taxes has changed over the years (Table 8.7). The two most important contributions are made by the business tax and the property tax on buildings but the former has diminished while the latter has increased. The residence tax is only slightly less important than the property tax on buildings and it has increased over time. The property tax on land is the least important of the four taxes and it is now barely 2 per cent of the total revenues from the four taxes. The two property taxes are remnants of the old physiocratic emphasis on land but, being rather static taxes, are of less interest to national governments. They are also problematic in that land valuations are carried out infrequently while the real market value of land is continually increasing.21 As a result, the value of these taxes has become increasingly distant from Table 8.7

The proportional contributions in % of the ‘quatre vieilles’, 1994–2005

Tax

1994

2005

Property tax on buildings Property tax on land Residence tax Business tax

25.9 2.4 22.4 49.3

31.1 1.7 23.5 43.7

Source: Ministry of the Interior, Collectivités locales en chiffres en 2006. http://www.dgcl.interieur.gouv.fr/Publications/CL_en_chiffres_2006/05_chapitre_3.pdf

190 Subnational Government

economic realities but all attempts to reform their base have so far come to nothing.22 The most buoyant of the four taxes is the business tax which, in 2001, generated 28.5 billion euros.23 It is for this reason that national governments like to keep this as a national tax.24 The buoyancy is derived from the fact that the tax is linked to economic activity and when the economy grows so does this tax. On the other hand, it has the disadvantage of penalizing business activities particularly the payroll element which affects employment levels. All four taxes are levied by all three levels of local government and some of the inter-municipal associations, with the exception of the residence tax which ceased to be levied by the regions in 2000. The local authorities could vote only the global amount of the four taxes but could not set their rates until a 1980 law gave them the right to fix the rate for each of the four taxes and to allow some rebates (compensated by the central state). The local fiscal regime was thus already in place just before the 1982 decentralization reforms but no radical change occurred between 1980 and the passage of the 1999 finance law, known as the LOLF (Loi organique relative aux lois de finance) further modified by the 2001 LOLF.25 Most of the local authorities’ tax revenue (65%) derives from these four taxes but there are other taxes which they may levy although there is a great deal of variety in the contribution each of them makes to the overall budget. These taxes may be direct or indirect: Direct • household waste disposal tax (taxe d’enlèvement des ordures ménagères) levied by municipalities and inter-municipal associations; • transport tax (versement transport) and may be levied by municipalities and inter-municipal associations; Indirect • property advertising tax (taxe de publicité foncière et droit d’enregistrement); • car tax (vignette automobile) levied by departments; • electricity tax (taxe sur l’électricité) may be levied by municipalities and departments; • transfer tax (droits de mutation) levied by departments (on the sale of building and on mortgages) and municipalities (additional tax on departmental registration fees); • vehicle registration tax (taxes sur les cartes grises) levied by departments; • tax on driving licences (taxes sur les permis de conduire) levied by municipalities, inter-municipal associations, regions and departments. Local taxation and democracy It is clear that the French system of local taxation is very complex at least when compared with other systems such as the quite simple systems found

Paying For It All 191 Table 8.8 Break-down of local direct and indirect taxes in billions of euros (2003 and 2004) Kind of tax

Direct taxes

Municipalities and inter-municipal associations 43.65

Departments

Regions

Total

15.45

3.16

62.26

‘Les quatre vieilles’ Residence tax (Taxe d’habitation) The property tax on buildings (Taxe sur le foncier bâti ) The property tax on land (Taxe sur le foncier non bâti) The business tax (Taxe professionnelle)

8.63

3.88

–

12.51

10.66

4.65

1.16

16.4

0.87

0.04

0.01

0.92

14.77

6.86

1.99

23.62

3.91

–

–

3.91

4.81 3.24

– 4.93

– 1.48

4.81 9.65

– –

4.25 0.13

– –

4.25 0.13

0.90

0.45

–

1.35

1.77

0.08

0

1.85

1.43

1.43

0.01 0.56

0.01 0.01

0.02 0.03

0.04 0.59

0.38 47.27

0.11 20.49

0.14 4.78

0.63 72.54

Other direct taxes Household waste disposal tax (Taxe d’enlèvement des ordures ménagères) tTansport tax (Versement destiné aux transports en commun) Indirect taxes Property advertising tax (Taxe de publicité foncière et droit d’enregistrement) Car tax (Vignette automobile) Electricity tax (Taxe sur l’électricité) Transfer tax (Taxe additionnelle aux droits de mutation) Vehicle registration tax (Taxe sur les cartes grises) Tax on driving licences (Taxe sur les permis de conduire) Other taxes Taxes linked to urbanism (Taxes liées à l’urbanisme) Total

Source: Ministry of the Interior. Collectivités locales en chiffres en 2006. http://www.dgcl.interieur.gouv.fr/Publications/CL_en_chiffres_2006/05_chapitre_3.pdf

in the UK or the Scandinavian countries. There are political and financial advantages and disadvantages in both types – simplified or complex. The advantages of simplicity are that the system becomes more transparent,

192 Subnational Government

while in the more complex system the main feature is its opacity. From the point of view of local democracy the simpler system makes it easier, at least in theory, for a citizen to make the link between taxation and decisionmaking, thus making it easier to hold the decision-makers, the local politicians accountable for their decisions. In the more complex system, like that in France, this direct link is difficult to discern. Furthermore, the same tax is divided among several different levels of government and this obscures even more strongly the link between taxation and decisionmaking. It has been suggested at times that this system be reformed with specific taxes attributed solely to a specific level but reforms along these lines have still to happen.26 In practice, though, even in simplified systems the citizen does not always see the link between local taxation and local decision-making. In Sweden, for example, although over 80 per cent of citizens pay only a local income tax, this is taken out of their salaries at the point of employment, and few citizens will make the link between it and decisions taken by the local authorities. From the point of view of local fiscal autonomy, however, there is something to be said for the more complex approach in the sense that it gives to local authorities a wider range of sources, of which some, for example the business tax, are very buoyant and this increases the possibility that their revenues will cover the necessary expenses, especially in periods of rapid economic change. In a country like the UK, the single local tax, the council tax based on property valuations, is very inflexible and is also deeply unpopular. A further advantage of the French model is that it suits the realities of a decentralized and increasingly asymmetrical state which France has become since 1982. Given the great variety of local and regional situations, there is an argument in favour of a variety of types of taxation that local authorities can draw on in order to respond to this diversity.27 Attempts to simplify and harmonize the system – suggested in some quarters and in a number of government reports – would run counter to the logic of decentralization and might be really attempts to re-centralize.28

Fiscal equalization A major disadvantage, of course, is that such a decentralized, asymmetrical and diversified system may lead to increasing disparities across the national territory since it is clear that there are some regions and localities with greater fiscal resources than others. One of the justifications of the national Welfare State was that it was a way of levelling out these differences and of creating a level playing field. It is true that the two logics of local autonomy and national solidarity are not always easy to reconcile and it could be said that this is the challenge facing all developed states today. Even the Scandinavian countries, Germany and the Netherlands with their highly developed social welfare systems and systems of equalization are grappling

Paying For It All 193

with the necessity of recognizing some diversity across their territory.29 It is certain that equalization (or what the French call la péréquation) is easier under the old standardized and centralized Welfare State model. But, because of the new competitiveness that now exists among local authorities and regions even within the same state, including France, equalization measures are necessary as a counter-weight to excessive competition. The French example of equalization mechanisms is, once again, not notable for its simplicity.30 There are, in fact several mechanisms that operate at the departmental, regional and national levels: Departmental • The Departmental Funds for Equalization of the Business Tax (FDPTP – Les Fonds départementaux de péréquation de la taxe professionnelle). These funds were created in 1975 within departments which contain large business enterprises such as ports, nuclear power stations, or chemical plants. The municipalities within which these enterprises are situated are classified as ‘exceptional’ if their business tax base is more than twice the national average. The departmental councils cream off the difference above this average and redistribute the funds to those municipalities which are classified as ‘concerned’ (‘concernées’) or ‘less favoured’ (‘défavorisées). The first group means those municipalities which include at least ten workers from one of the enterprises who, with their families, make up 1 per cent of the population of the municipality or municipalities which contain an energy barrage or a nuclear power station. But it can also include municipalities which are affected by the presence of such an installation when, for example, this leads to a degradation of the roads. The less favoured municipalities are those with a weak fiscal base. These funds, however, have been criticized for the vagueness and difficulty of applying the criteria. • The Departmental Funds for Solidarity with the Environment (FDSE – Les Fonds départementaux de solidarité pour l’environnement). In effect, this is an application of the principle that ‘the polluter pays’ and involves a part of the business tax in those municipalities where there is an enterprise which stocks industrial waste. • The Departmental Equalization Funds for Municipalities with Onerous Property Transfer Taxes (Les Fonds départementaux de péréquation du produit des taxes additionnelles communales aux droits de mutation à titre onéraux). This is an equalization mechanism operated by the prefect and concerns non-tourist municipalities with less than 5000 inhabitants with onerous property transactions. National equalization funds • The National Fund for Equalization of the Business Tax (FNPTP – Fonds national de péréquation de la taxe professionnelle). The FNPTP was created

194 Subnational Government

in 1980 but began to operate in 1983. Its aim is to support those municipalities with a weak fiscal base and where the tax on families is higher than the average. In 1992, a rural development grant (DDR – dotation de développement rural) was incorporated into the fund. • The National Fund for Equalization (FNP – Fonds national de péréquation). This was created by the 1995 law on territorial development and is designed to top up the FNPTP. Regional funds • The Regional Inequalities Correction Fund (Le Fonds de correction des déséquilibres régionaux). This was created in 1992 to prevent the exacerbation of inter-regional inequality. It is drawn from the fiscal receipts of those regions whose fiscal potential is higher than the national average of the regions as a whole. In 2000, three regions were subject to this: Ilede-France (the greater Paris region), Rhône-Alpes and Alsace. • The Fund for Solidarity among the Municipalities of the Ile-de-France region (FSRIF – Le Fonds de solidarité entre municipalities de la region Ile-deFrance). This fund, created in 1991 (modified in 1996) aims to reduce the disparities among the municipalities and EPCIs of this region. Equalization can be either horizontal or vertical. Horizontal equalization is when there are transfers from local authorities to other local authorities without the state intervening. Vertical equalization is when resources are transferred from the central state from stronger to weaker local authorities. It is clear from the above presentation that most equalization mechanisms in France are horizontal although there is at least one vertical one, the FNP. But vertical equalization can also occur within the system of central government grants to local authorities as we shall see in the next section.

Central government grants The second major source of funding for the local authorities is in the form of transfers from central government (les concours financiers de l’État). These may be in the form of direct grants (in French ‘general grants’ over which the local authorities have complete control within the law are known as dotations while ‘ear-marked grants’ are known as subventions) or of compensations for rebates for local taxes (compensations d’exonérations et de dégrèvements législatifs).31 Altogether these come to around 55 billion euros per annum. Apart from the compensatory grants, the direct grants fall into two main categories: (i) operating grants and (ii) capital investment grants.32 The key question with regard to local autonomy is the extent to which these grants are ear-marked for specific purposes or whether they are general or block grants over which the local authorities have complete control within

Paying For It All 195

the bounds established by the law. It is obvious that only the second type constitutes real autonomy. In France, as elsewhere,33 the tendency in recent years has been towards increasing general and decreasing specific grants, although very recently this tendency shows some signs of being reversed.34 Nevertheless, it is estimated that ear-marked grants make up only about 5.6 per cent of the total of state grants to local authorities.35 Operating grants (Les dotations et subventions de fonctionnement) These account for about 80 per cent of the total amount of grants and are divided into different kinds, general operating grants and ear-marked operating grants.36

General operating grants • The General Operating Grant (DGF – Dotation globale de fonctionnement). This amounted to about 38.25 million euros in 2006 (Table 8.9) and is allocated to municipalities, departments and inter-municipal associations. The DGF makes up about 25 per cent of the revenues of the municipalities and about 10 per cent of those of the departments. It is also an instrument of equalization and financial and physical infrastructure (fiscal potential, length of the road system, population, etc.) are taken into account when deciding it. • The General Decentralization Grant (DGD – Dotation globale de décentralisation) was established as part of the decentralization process to compensate a part of the financial costs linked to the transfer of functions to the local authorities (the rest are made up from some national taxes). It amounted to about 1.03 billion euros in 2006 and is allocated to municipalities and departments. Corsica also receives its own decentralization grant (dotation générale de décentralisation Corse) which, in 2006, amounted to 265 million euros. • The Vocational Training Grant (DFP – dotation formation professionnelle) to cover the transfer the transfer of this responsibility to the regions. It came to 1.6 million euros in 2006. • Grant for primary school teachers (dotation spéciale instituteurs) which, in 2006, was 136 million euros. This was originally part of the DGF but, in 1986, became a separate grant. It is received by municipalities who have to provide accommodation for primary school teachers. • Grant for training for local politicians (dotation élu local) which, in 2006, was 61 million euros. This dates from 1992 and applies to rural municipalities with fewer than 1000 inhabitants and whose fiscal potential is less than the average of such municipalities. It is aimed at making good losses in the salaries of local politicians incurred through council business and to reinforce the indemnities of mayors and their deputies. In 2001, the grant was awarded to 20 830 municipalities.

196 Subnational Government

Ear-marked operating grants • One-off grants (subventions exceptionnelles) for municipalities in financial difficulties as a result of unforeseen circumstances. Investment grants (Dotations et subventions d’équipement) General investment grants are as follows: • The General Infrastructure Grant (DGE – dotation globale d’équipment) which saw a sharp drop from 932 million euros in 2005 to 770 million euros in 2006 a decline of 17.3 per cent. • The Rural Development Grant (DDR – Dotation de développement rural) which was 124 million euros in 2006. • The VAT compensation fund (fond de compensation de la TVA) which is the amount the state reimburses for VAT paid by the municipalities for their capital expenditure – a massive 4.03 billion euros in 2006.

Ear-marked grants • There are also specific ear-marked grants such as for school infrastructure (dotation d’équipment scolaire) which was allocated to departments and regions when they were given responsibility for schools’ infrastructure. Management of the grant system It is clear that the French grants system, like its system of local taxation, is highly complex and technical. The DGF is operated by a Local Finances Committee (CFL – Comité des finances locales), set up in 1979 and whose original brief included: agreeing the amount of the DGF that will be included in the budget (the loi des finances) each year, deciding how it will be shared out among the municipalities, deciding the total amount of particular grants, and giving advice on laws that have a bearing on local finances.37 The committee is composed of 28 representatives of local politicians (four departmental presidents; two regional presidents; seven presidents of inter-municipal associations; and 15 mayors), four parliamentarians (two deputies and two senators) and 11 from the state ministries (four from the Ministry of the Interior; three from the ministry in charge of the Budget one each from the Ministries of the Economy, Tourism, DOMTOM, and the ministry responsible for towns). The 1995 law on territorial infrastructure and development confided new tasks to the CFL: carrying out analytical studies in preparation for those parts of the budget dealing with local finance; drawing up an annual report on the situation of local finances; and carrying out studies analysing the factors behind the evolution of local finances. In order to carry out these tasks the CFL created a specialized group, made up of members of the CFL and four academics, called the Local Finances Observatory (l’Observatoire des finances locales).

Paying For It All 197

The evolution of the grant system as revelatory of central-local relations As already noted, the general trend with regard to the grant system has been a shift from ear-marked grants for specific purposes over which the local authorities had little or no discretion to a system of block grants which the local authorities can freely dispose of within the law. This represents a shift from the model of central-local relations in operation in the 1960s and first half of the 1970s which, elsewhere, we called the ‘principalagent’ model to a ‘choice’ model.38 Under the first model, it was thought by national planners that ear-marked grants were a better means of achieving equalization among local authorities across the national territory as well making it easier to conduct infrastructural planning and development. It was thought that local politicians, if they had control of the resources, would make the wrong choices and plan in a very narrow and selfinterested way and avoiding investment in those sectors which they deemed to be unattractive even if this went against the national interest. In other words, central planners had a view of the bigger (national) picture and could make such choices more effectively and rationally. Furthermore, the system of specific grants meant that there was more likelihood that the local authorities would respect national norms. By the mid-1970s, it was clear that this strategy had largely failed and this was emphasized in the report entitled Vivre Ensemble.39 Needless to say, local politicians were also not enamoured of this nationalized approach and demanded greater discretion over the grants. This led to a gradual loosening of central constraints and hence the passage from ear-marked to general grants. This movement began in the 1970s but it was the creation of the DGE by 2 March 1982 law on decentralization which represented the beginning of a process involving several more laws.40 The final word on this may be left to Michel Bouvier: ‘Une telle evolution va dans le sens d’une transformation ineluctable de l’État et partant des modes de financement et de gestion du secteur public local et national’ (‘Such a development is heading in the direction of an inevitable transformation of the state which is happening in both the public finance and public management systems at both local and national levels’).41

Other sources of local income Besides local taxes and central grants, local authorities have access to two other sources: (i) borrowing (about 7 per cent of GDP42) and (ii) fees and charges. Borrowing The same shift towards greater freedom of choice we observed in the domain of central grants can also be observed with regard to the conditions

198 Subnational Government

of borrowing by local authorities.43 Before 1982, the latter had little autonomy in this regard and were subject to a variety of constraints by the central state. The local authorities had to obtain the approval of the prefect if they wished to borrow from private organizations or if the reimbursement rates of interest were above those published each month in the Journal Officiel. They could borrow from public or semi-public organizations at preferential rates but only on condition that they obtained a specific grant from the central state. These two features made them highly dependent on the latter. Furthermore, the sums borrowed had to be used for the projects specified and not for any others thus limiting their discretion over the sums borrowed. Some liberalization of this regime began after 1976 with the allowance of global loans to some municipalities of more than 10 000 inhabitants by the Caisse des dépôts et consignations (a state lending bank). In 1979 this approach was applied to all municipalities with more than 10 000 inhabitants. But it was the decentralization law of 2 March 1982 which transformed the borrowing regime by suppressing all of the previous constraints, although borrowing must still be for capital investment and not to cover operating costs. The amount, the rate of reimbursement and the lender are now chosen in complete freedom by the local authority. On the other hand, it is obligatory for the local authorities to reimburse the loan. Another constraint on the local authorities’ freedom in the field of borrowing comes as a result of the signature by France of the Treaties of Maastricht and Nice and the economic criteria necessary for entry into the eurozone.44 This is a new fiscal orthodoxy which constrains national governments but is, in turn, a constraining factor on local authorities. The new borrowing regime created a new local financial market and the suppression of the previous constraints had two main effects. First, it meant that many local authorities rushed into the market to fund various projects. Second, the range of lenders expanded and diversified as regular banks saw this as an excellent opportunity to invade a newly-created market niche – the local government niche. Today there are several banking establishments who are the main lenders for local authorities: Dexia-Crédit local (a Franco-Belgian private bank created from two public organizations in 1987); the Caisses d’épargne; the Crédit Foncier de France (CFF); the Crédit Agricole (CA); the Crédit Mutuel (CM); and other establishments. Many local authorities, even those which were quite small, rushed into the new liberalized market but were often quite unprepared to make use of it as they lacked both the technical and personnel resources to do so. As a result, there was an increase in local authority indebtedness in the early years. In recent years, however, this has tapered off and it is mainly the larger local authorities, who do possess these resources, which are engaged in this field. Furthermore, as the local authorities have had to develop a more professional approach to borrowing there has been a consequent reduction in local authority debt in recent years.

Paying For It All 199 Table 8.9

The debts of local authorities in billions of euros (1999–2005)

Debt on 1 January

1999

2000

2001

2002

2003

2004

2005

Régions Départements Communes (y compris Paris) Total

8.85 21.86 51.64

8.30 20.68 51.39

7.90 19.06 51.41

7.66 18.22 51.15

7.82 18.27 50.80

8.36 18.73 49.59

9.55 19.69 49.76

82.36

80.36

78.36

77.02

76.89

76.67

79.00

Source: Ministry of the Interior, Collectivités locales en chiffres en 2006. http://www.dgcl.interieur.gouv.fr/Publications/CL_en_chiffres_2006/05_chapitre_6.pdf

The banks, too, have had to learn some hard lessons following the initial liberalization of the market. At first, many banks offered loans to local authorities at very attractive rates and this had two consequences. First, the traditional lenders such as the Caisse des dépôts et consignations had to follow suit which meant they could no longer offer preferential rates to local authorities but had to compete with the regular banks. Second, the banks soon learned that the local authorities were not always capable of managing the loans and, in particular, repaying them even at these preferential rates for the reasons mentioned above, that is, the local authorities’ lack of professionalism. Table 8.9 gives an overview of the patterns of debt in recent years. For the departments and municipalities there has been a decline between 1999 and 2005 while for regions there has been an overall increase. For all the levels of local government there was an initial decline between 1999 and 2003 after which indebtedness rose again. But the overall indebtedness of local authorities has declined from 82.36 billion euros in 1999 to 79 billion in 2005. This contrasts with the debt of the central state which has been increasing in recent years. Fees deriving from public and private properties and charges for services These fall under two general headings: the exploitation of the local authorities’ properties (les produits du domaine); and the charging of fees for services. • Local authority properties may be ‘private’ or ‘public’ (in English both of these would be regarded as ‘public’). Revenues from private properties belonging to the local authorities may be rents, farming tenancies (fermages), and wood-cutting charges. Revenues from public property come in such forms as fees for parking taxis, the occupation of footpaths and roads by café and restaurants, newspaper kiosks, or petrol stations. • Services offered by the local authorities such as refuse collection or public transport are now delivered through a variety of systems ranging from direct delivery by the council to the delegation to private companies, as

200 Subnational Government

well as different forms of public-private partnership. Each of these methods involves a different way of calculating the fees collected and the amount that goes to the local authority. As in other European countries, the tendency in France has been to move towards a more ‘liberal’ regime giving a greater role to the private sector and emphasizing the profitability of these services.

European funds France is eligible to receive funding from a number of EU programmes of which the most important are the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) and those funds which make up what are collectively known as the Structural Funds and which comprise, the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), the European Social Fund (ESF) and the European Agricultural Guidance and Guarantee Fund (EAGGF – Guidance Section), and the Financial Instrument for Fisheries Guidance (FIFG). The Structural Funds have three ‘objectives’: Objective 1 – development and structural adjustment of regions whose development is lagging behind; Objective 2 – economic and social conversion of areas facing structural difficulties; and Objective 3 – which is concerned with assisting the adaptation and modernization of national systems of education and training. Objectives 1 and 2 are funded by the ERDF and 3 by the ESF. In Objective 1 regions, FIFG is integrated into the regional development programmes; outside these regions it is a separate source of financing. In the current round of funding (2000–2006), France received funding for six regions classified as Objective 1, mostly for its islands (Réunion, Guadaloupe, Martinique, French Guyana and Corsica) but also for Nord-Pas-de-Calais45 and 21 classified as Objective 2. Funding was also received under several Community Initiative Programmes: nine under the URBAN II scheme (to promote sustainable development in troubled urban areas and funded by the ERDF) and 19 under INTERREG III, which promotes cross-border initiatives with neighbouring countries. Other programmes operating in France which may have an impact on the regions are EQUAL, LEADER and FIFG (outside of the Objective 1 regions). Table 8.10 gives a breakdown of the total amount of funding that France received for the period 2000–2006.

Table 8.10

Structural funds in France, 2000–2006 (in millions of euros)

Obj. 1

Obj. 2

Obj.3

4 119

6 538.4

4 918.1

INTERREG URBAN 429.55

103.54

EQUAL

LEADER

325.65

272.83

Source: European Commission, France: European Structural Funds (2000–2006) http://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/atlas/france/factsheets/pdf/fact_fr_fr.pdf

FIFG

Total

243.80 16 950.88

Paying For It All 201

These sums are really quite small when put in the context of the French budget as a whole and of the revenues and expenditures of the local authorities. It is important therefore not to exaggerate the ‘European’ effect on either local finances or on local decision-making. Nevertheless, two points might be made. First, the possibility of receiving funding from Europe has acted as a catalyst for local authorities and stimulated a process of mobilization by regions and municipalities to qualify for the funding. At first, the central state through the DATAR tried to keep a firm control of the process but, with the gradual loosening of central constraints as a result of both decentralization and new approaches to public management (symbolized by the transition of the DATAR to the DIACT), this is now much less the case. But, second, ‘Europe’ became an important frame of reference for those reformers among the political and administrative elites who wished to push forward the process of decentralization. Many of the reports emanating from various sources – the National Assembly, the Senate, different governments – regularly invoked ‘Europe’ to justify their reforms. Furthermore, what might be called the ‘European model of governance’ based on the principles of subsidiarity and partnership but also, to some extent, on competitiveness, has had a profound influence on the way in which the elites of the French state now think about public management and, especially, territorial governance. In a way, these effects are much more important than simple sums of money arriving into the state as they signify a more lasting and deeper cultural change.46

Conclusions From the point of view of their financial autonomy, French local authorities are in quite a strong position compared with many of their European neighbours. The majority of their revenue comes in the form of own resources and the central grant system has steadily increased the proportion of general grants with a significant decline of ear-marked grants. Furthermore, one of the taxes available to the local authorities is the business tax which is one the most buoyant and lucrative kinds of tax and one which central governments normally keep for themselves. French local authorities can also set the rates of their local taxes which is another indicator of local autonomy. There is also a great variety of taxes, both compulsory and optional, which they can draw upon which is an advantage compared to having a single tax as in the UK. But the French system of local finances is not without its disadvantages. First, from a fiscal perspective, some of the local taxes, such as the tax on unbuilt land are not very lucrative or buoyant. Second, the system is highly obscure with all three levels of local government usually drawing on the same tax. This means, from a political and democratic perspective, that the link between taxation and decision-making at the local level is far from

202 Subnational Government

transparent. But, like most other aspects of French public administration, it has proved extremely difficult to reform this system in the direction of simplicity and streamlining. Rather is it the case that if a new form of tax or a new procedure is adopted that the pre-existing ones remain in place.

Conclusions

This has been a long and rather tortuous journey through the various byways of French subnational government and governance. But, despite the complexity and messiness of this three general conclusions may be drawn. First, that the various territorial governance reforms carried out in France over the past 20 years have profoundly modified the nature of the French state and its relations with other levels of government. Second, these transformations in France reflect the wider changes in territorial governance outlined in the introductory chapter of this book and similar challenges have been faced by all developed states. Third, France has responded to these changes in a specifically French way, given its traditions of statism and the role of the administrative elites formed by institutions such as the Ecole Nationale d’Administration and the Polytechnique.

The transformation of the French state and its institutions: towards the Sixth Republic? How, then, has the French state changed? Perhaps the most dramatic change has been in the state’s definition of itself as expressed in the 2003 change to the Constitution. The notion of France as ‘one and indivisible’ is retained but its ‘organization’ is henceforth understood as being ‘decentralized’. Furthermore, the new Constitution defines a number of principles that now underlie French territorial organization: subsidiarity; the guarantee of local self-government (‘libre administration’); the guarantee of sufficient resources to realize this self-government; the introduction of a number of elements of direct local democracy; the acceptance of the right to experiment by local authorities; recognition of the right of overseas territories and departments to adapt their institutional structures to their specific circumstances. All of this is a far cry from the highly centralized, uniform and standardized nature of the French state that existed before, even if such a self-image did not completely correspond to the multiple realities both of state practice and of French society. To some extent, 203

204 Subnational Government

therefore, the constitutional changes are simply a harmonization of the legal foundations of the state with these complex realities. But, there are also important innovations which show an attempt to align French territorial governance with wider models such as that which underlies the EU system. We should note in particular the constitutional recognition of the principle of subsidiarity. Although it is not part of the Constitution, the corollary principle of subsidiarity in EU governance is that of partnership and this is now an established and key element of French public policy, principally through the contractual approach to planning which involves partnerships between the state and the local authorities, particularly the regions but also with intermunicipal associations. The new contractual approach also involves partnerships between the latter and the regions. The radical nature of these new principles of territorial governance, as well as other changes in the system – the existence of two great ideological blocs; the practice of co-habitation between a president and prime minister from different blocs; the change in the length of the presidency from seven to five years – raise the question as to whether we should not, in fact, speak of the ‘Sixth Republic’. This is the argument of Arnaud Montebourg, a socialist deputy who has created a movement called ‘Convention pour la VIème République’, which claims to have 2500 members and is organized into 40 local committees. The Verts also wish to move to the Sixth Republique, given the significant changes that have been made to the Fifth. At the institutional level, there has been an almost complete upheaval at both national and subnational levels. The most important innovations here are the creation and development of the regional councils and also the success of the inter-municipal associations, particularly the communautés d’agglomération and the pays. It is true that other institutions which should have been abolished – the departments and some of the older inter-municipal associations – are still with us. But these are now being squeezed by the new regions and especially by the pays. At the national level, the institutional changes are also striking. The most symbolic are perhaps the changes in the roles of the Commissariat du Plan and the DATAR (now the DIACT) from direct interventionist to more hands-off strategic and stimulatory roles. The civil service has also been profoundly modified with the creation of the territorial administration alongside the national administration and the health service leading to the existence of three distinct fonctions publiques. But it is not simply the organizational structures which have changed but also the operating culture and the processes underlying these administrations. These have become much more influenced by the New Public Management approaches of the AngloSaxon world than would have been thought possible even 20 years ago. Finally, the positions of the actors within the French system of territorial governance have changed. The most striking has been the changing posi-

Conclusions 205

tion of the prefects who once incarnated the centralized Napoleonic state. The position of the prefect has undergone several shifts since the beginning of the decentralization process from greater marginalization at the beginning to a recapture of a much more central role as time went on. But, although the prefect is now much more centrally positioned than was the case at the beginning of the reforms, the role he plays at this centre has radically changed. Today, he is in a situation that is much more modest and less hierarchical than was the case in the past and the qualities of a good prefect are those which enable him to steer successfully a course among a much more complex and messy set of institutions than existed before. Today, he must also reckon with a new set of actors whose positions were enhanced as a result of the 1982 decentralization reforms: the presidents of the regions and the departmental councils as well as the mayors of the big cities (who were always present). This book has shown that there exist a great variety of configurations in the relationships among these different actors across France. The position of local politicians in general has changed with the reform of the cumul des mandats system but, with the exception of regional and departmental presidents, this has been less radical. What is clear is that the ‘régulation croisée’ that characterized the old system has been replaced by a new system of ‘network governance’. The main difference between the two is that the older system was much more hierarchical than the latter or, at least, the hierarchies were much more formal and based on statutory regulations and much less on the charismatic qualities of the actors.

France and the wider changes in territorial governance Up to about 20 years ago, it was possible to write self-contained textbooks on French government and politics without referring very much to the outside world and even to geographically close countries such as Germany, Italy or the United Kingdom. 1 Although it is still possible to write such a textbook, today there would be much more reference at least to the European Union as an important factor in French public policy and administration. The importance of this international dimension became clear when the French socialists experimented with ‘social democracy in one country’ after coming to power in 1981. This was an attempt to return to Keynesian economic approaches after the the years of liberal approaches by the previous president Giscard d’Estaing. By 1983, as a result of punishment by financial capitalism with the flight of currency reserves from France as well as pressures from other European states, then in the grip of neo-liberalism, the socialist government had to go into reverse and fall into line with the rest. Around this same period, European integration was ‘relaunched’ with the arrival of the French socialist Jacques Delors to the presidency of the European Commission in

206 Subnational Government

1984. Delors gave an impetus to the integration process by launching the Single Market project which was to be completed by January 1993. President Mitterrand and the French socialists threw themselves behind this drive toward greater European integration and the ‘social democracy in one country’ project was quietly forgotten. Furthermore, there was a new opening up to the outside world on the part of French administrative and academic elites increasing numbers of whom swallowed their Gallic pride and even began to learn to communicate in English (!) and to participate in international policy and academic networks. A good example of this opening up is Sciences Po, Paris, which now has important non-French centres dealing with European and North American issues. All of this is quite new compared to the quite recent past. One of the consequences of this opening up of France to the outside has been an increased influence of policy and administrative paradigms developed elsewhere. In practice, this has meant the increasing influence of the United States which has been the world leader in these domains. For example, the theory of New Public Management was developed in the United States, emigrated to the United Kingdom and was then adopted in various forms by other European states. American intellectual hegemony in this field was strengthened with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the discrediting of not just communism but of a certain kind of interventionist social democracy. The European and American left were therefore constrained to find an alternative to older forms of social democracy. In the United States, the Democratic Party under President Clinton tried to ‘reinvent government’. The British Labour Party transformed itself into Tony Blair’s ‘New’ Labour Party, which adopted Thatcherite neo-liberal ideas and tried to reformulate them as the Third Way, and so on. International organizations such as the European Commission, the OECD, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank all promoted some form of neoliberalism as an element of ‘good governance’. The French administrative and intellectual elites espoused some of these new ideas, even if sometimes ‘management’ was translated as ‘gestion’ but, most often, the English word was simply adopted in phrases such as ‘le nouveau management publique’. Among the new ideas of ‘good governance’ that were being developed at this time were the notions of decentralization and regionalization, seen as ways of relieving central government of burdensome tasks but also as aspects of a new understanding of democracy – regional and local democracy. The organization which most developed the idea of subnational democracy was the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of Europe of the Council of Europe2 which promulgated the European Charter of Local Self-government in 1985. When the Committee of the Regions was set up by the Treaty of Maastricht in 1994, it tried to develop the idea further. Although there may not have been little direct influence of these different organizations in France, there seems little doubt that together they devel-

Conclusions 207

oped a new understanding of the nature of governance and, in particular, of territorial governance. In the French case, the European dimension was often invoked as a justification for strengthening decentralization and regionalization.

The Gallic ‘reception’ of the new ideas This does not mean that there is a process of institutional and policy convergence across Europe in the sense of a transnational ‘uniformity’. On the contrary, each country adopts these general trends according to its specific state and administrative traditions and culture.3 It is clear, for example, that the French were unwilling to forcibly amalgamate the large number of municipalities or to completely abolish their prefectoral system. In practice, they have retained most of their older institutions, created some new ones, and reconfigured their relationships with each other. This incrementalist approach to institutional change has been complemented by a change in culture and mentality and the underlying values of the political and administrative elites and in the operating procedures of the political and administrative institutions. In the French case, this means that there has been no attempt to abandon the central state dominant position. The relationship between it and the subnational governments remains hierarchical. Nor has there been any attempt either to abolish the prefectoral system or indeed to abolish the departments which are probably the supernumerary level of meso-governance. On the contrary, successive French presidents and governments have reaffirmed the importance of these actors and institutions. In fact, it may be argued that the central state has managed to claw back some of the prerogatives it lost in the initial phases of decentralization with the change in the role of the prefects. But what does seem to have happened is that the central state and its agents now exercise this hegemony in a different, somewhat more convoluted, kind of way. There is reason to believe that, in fact, this may be even more effective than the old top-down tradition. Final remarks Thus this reworking of its traditional forms of government and administration and its territorial politics mean that France today is somewhat less of an exception than it once was. It definitely remains ‘French’ but is so in a more open, cosmopolitan way which shares a great deal with its fellow Europeans from other countries and, indeed, with other parts of the world, such as North America, Australia and New Zealand. To some extent, there is a truly global culture – at the level of lifestyle, ideas, values and expectations – that transcends any particular nation-state adopted by most members of that nation-state but without completely destroying some of the familiar aspects of that state. To this, France is no exception.

Notes Introduction: The International Context of French Subnational Governance 1 On the notion of an ‘end’ to French exceptionalism, see F. Furet, J. Juillard and P. Rosanvallon, La République au centre. La fin de l’exception française (Paris: Calmann-Lévy, 1988) and also J. Lovecy, ‘The End of French Exceptionalism’, West European Politics, vol. 22, no. 4, October 1999, pp. 205–224. 2 Among the best sources for studying this issue are the regular reports of the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of Europe of the Council of Europe which present the state of play of ‘regional and local democracy’ in all 46 member states of the Council. One report is dedicated to each member state. This author has served as ‘expert’ in three such reports: on Moldova, Albania and Sweden. 3 Before the Revolution, the King was thought to embody the ‘nation’ and the ‘State’ emanated from him – at least this is summed up in the (perhaps apocryphal) phrase of Louis XIV: L’Etat, c’est moi! 4 This idea was also at the root of the conflicts between monarchs, the Holy Roman Emperor, and the pope, all of whom claimed legitimacy to rule in temporal affairs on the basis of the same spiritual principle. 5 For example, in most countries women were permitted to vote in national elections only at the end of the 19th and beginning and even the middle of the 20th centuries: Norway (1913), Denmark and Iceland (1915), UK (but only to women over 30!), Germany, Austria, Russian Federation, etc (1918), Greece (1952), etc. Astonishingly, given its current political culture of ‘political correctness’ Canada gave women full rights to stand for election only in 1960. 6 Scholars dispute to what extent ‘nations’ have a pre-existing ‘ethnic’ component, as Anthony D. Smith would hold in his The ethnic origins of nations (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1986) or whether they are in fact ‘constructions’ or, as Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger put it, in their edited volume, ‘inventions’, The invention of tradition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983). 7 H. Spruyt, The Sovereign State and Its Competitors (Princeton N.J: Princeton University Press, 1994). 8 P. G. Cerny, ‘Globalization and the Changing Logic of Collective Action’, International Organization, Vol. 49, no. 4, 1995, pp. 595–625. 9 K. Polanyi, The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time (Boston: Beacon Press, 1944). 10 P. Wagner, A Sociology of Modernity: Liberty and Discipline (London: Routledge, 1993). 11 S. George, ‘A Short History of Neo-liberalism. Twenty Years of Elite Economics and Emerging Opportunities for Structural Change’, Conference on Economic Sovereignty in a Globalising World Bangkok, 24–26 March 1999. 12 C. Crouch, Social Change in Western Europe (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), p. 343. 13 T. H. Marshall, ‘Citizenship and Social Class,’ Citizenship and Social Class and Other Essays (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1950). 14 M. Burgess, Federalism and the EU: Building of Europe, 1950–2000 (London: Routledge, 2000. 208

Notes 209 15 A. S. Milward, The European Rescue of the Nation-State, 2nd edition (London: Routledge, 2000). 16 See G. Esping-Anderson, The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism. Cambridge: Policy Press, 1990 – the ‘three worlds’ are: the Scandinavian socialist model, the ‘Catholic’ family-based model, and the Anglo-American ‘liberal’ model. F. G. Castles (ed.) Families of Nations: Patterns of Public Policy in Western Democracies (Aldershot: Dartmouth, 1993) also distinguishes several types of welfare regimes. Some authors further refine the typology by adding a distinctive southern European welfare regime, e.g. M. Ferrera, A. Hemerijk and M. Rhodes, The Future of Social Europe: Recasting Work and Welfare in the New Economy (Report for the Portuguese Presidency of the European Union). Florence: European University Institute, 2001. 17 S. George, op. cit., Bangkok, 24–26 March 1999. http://www.swp.ie/resources/ Ideas per cent20Workshop/2005/A_Short_History_of_Neo.doc 18 C. Offe, Contradictions of the welfare state (London: Hutchinson, 1984) 19 See, for example, H. Marcuse, Eros and Civilisation, a Philosophical Exploration into Freud (Boston: Beacon Press, 1955) and W. Reich, The Sexual Revolution: toward a self-governing character structure (New York: Orgone Institute Press, 1945). 20 D. Hanley and P. Kerr (eds), May ’68: Coming of Age (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 1989) although some contemporary critics of May ’68 see it more as a prolongation of adolescence rather than of coming to maturity. 21 It could be argued that the centre-left governments, led by politicians such as Lionel Jospin, Tony Blair, Gerhard Schröder and Joschka Fischer, which came to power in Europe and other developed states in the 1990s were largely comprised of those of the baby-boom generation who, as young men and women, had at least been present, even if they were not always active, in the student revolts of the Sixties. 22 S. George, op. cit., asks the scathing question: ‘How did neo-liberalism ever emerge from its ultra-minoritarian ghetto to become the dominant doctrine in the world today?’. 23 Op. cit. 24 J. Loughlin, A. Lidstrom and C. Hudson, ‘The Politics of Local Taxation in Sweden: Reform and Continuity’, Local Government Studies, Vol. 31, no. 3, 2005, pp. 334–368. The ‘free commune’ experiments of the late 1980s and early 1990s were attempts to reduce some of these regulations. See S. Martin, J. Loughlin and S. Lux, The Free Communes Experiments: lessons for policy in England (Whitehall: Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, January 2006). 25 J. R. O’Connor, The Fiscal Crisis of the State (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1973). 26 B. Jessop, The future of the capitalist state (Cambridge: Polity, 2002). 27 As S. George, op. cit., comments: ‘[Neo-liberals] have understood, as progressives have not, that ideas have consequences. Starting from a tiny embryo at the University of Chicago with the philosopher-economist Friedrich von Hayek and his students like Milton Friedman at its nucleus, the neo-liberals and their funders have created a huge international network of foundations, institutes, research centres, publications, scholars, writers and public relations hacks to develop, package and push their ideas and doctrine relentlessly’. 28 ‘Privatization’, for example, took distinct forms in countries such as France or the Netherlands, see J. Vickers and V. Wright (eds), The Politics of Privatisation in Western Europe (London: Cass, 1988). 29 Footnote 15. 30 Ferrera et al., op. cit., p. 2.

210 Notes 31 An interesting example of this rethinking of the nature of the state can be found in the Picq Report drawn up for the French Government: L’Etat en France: Servir une nation ouverte au monde (Rapport de la Mission sur les Responsabilities et la Mission de l’Etat). May 1994, which recasts the role of the central state as less interventionist and more strategic. This will be examined in greater detail in further chapters of the present work. 32 In every state with a strong Welfare State tradition such as the UK, Sweden or France, there are still political parties or fractions of these parties committed to the old ideals. But, although there is as yet little empirical evidence to test this, they seem to be in a minority even within the traditional socialist and social democratic parties of the left. The same mix can be found in the European Union, for example, in the Commission where different DGs have distinctive policy models ranging from traditional social democracy to neo-liberalism. 33 J. Loughlin, ‘The “Transformation” of Governance: New Directions in Policy and Politics’. Australian Journal of Politics and History, Vol. 50, No. 1, March 2004, pp. 8–22. 34 A. Giddens, The third way: the renewal of social democracy (Cambridge: Policy, 1998). 35 Ferrera et al., op. cit., p. 2. 36 See, for example, K. Ohmae, The End of the Nation-State: the Rise in Regional Economies (New York: the Free Press, 1995). 37 A similar remark might be made about the debate on whether ‘globalization’ is something that is really happening or whether claims that it is happening (and that the nation-state is no longer an important policy actor) are a way the political right is using to undermine left-wing movements which aim their efforts at national governments. See, for example, P. Hirst and G. Thompson Globalization in question: the international economy and the possibilities of governance (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1996) for an attempt to rebut the globalization thesis from a left-wing point of view. 38 For overviews of these reforms see J. Loughlin et al., Subnational Democracy in the European Union (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004) and C. Jeffery (ed.), The regional dimension of the European Union: towards a third level in Europe? (London: Frank Cass, 1997). 39 An early work which began to analyse this trend was L. J. Sharpe (ed.), Decentralist trends in western democracies (London: Sage, 1979). 40 J. Loughlin and S. Lux, ‘Subnational Finances in Spain: Lessons for the UK?’, Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, April 2004. http://www.local.odpm. gov.uk/finance/balance/bof22.pdf 41 On the Italian reforms, see A. Bull, ‘Federalizing Italy: A Contested and Confused Process’, Paper presented to Conference on Territorial Governance, Cardiff University, May 2006. 42 J. Loughlin, ‘The United Kingdom: from Hypercentralization to Devolution’, in J. Loughlin et al., Subnational Democracy in the European Union: Challenges and Opportunities (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004). 43 The Charter has been signed by 43 of the 46 member states of the Council with only three micro-states, Andorra, Monaco, San Marino not doing do. Of the 43 who have signed, only one, France, has not yet ratified it because of resistance from France’s conseil constitutionnel. The UK only ratified the Charter in 1998 after the election of the first Blair government but the Charter is still not applied to Northern Ireland. 44 J. Loughlin, ‘Italy: the Crisis of the Second Republic’, in Subnational Democracy in the European Union: Challenges and Opportunities (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004).

Notes 211 45 E. Aja, ‘Spain: Nation, Nationalities, and regions’, in ibid. 46 This refers to the system of fueros, fiscal privileges dating from the Middle Ages, whereby the Basque Country and Navarre raise taxes first and then pay the central government for the services it provides. In the rest of Spain, including the other ‘nationalities’, it is the other way around. See J. Loughlin and S. Lux, op. cit., 2004. 47 See Loughlin, Lidstrom and Hudson, op. cit. 48 In September 2006, the centre-right managed to scrape into power and replace the Social Democrat government. Part of their programme is the promise to make more flexible what they regard as the rigidities of the old system. 49 In the UK, for example, one of the first casualties of Mrs Thatcher’s government was regional policy. 50 See H. Baldersheim, and K. Ståhlberg (eds) Towards the Self-Regulating Municipality – Free Communes and Administrative Modernization in Scandinavia (Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing Limited 1994) and for an attempt to apply some of the lessons to the English case: S. Martin, J. Loughlin and S. Lux, The Free Communes Experiments: lessons for policy in England, op. cit. 51 The two ‘regions’ were created on an experimental basis by amalgamating some existing counties and transferring some of the planning powers of the County Administrative Boards (state planning agencies) to them. See Loughlin, Lidstrom and Hudson, op. cit. 52 This is the underlying rationale of the Council of Europe’s Charter of Local Selfgovernment and other declarations in support of regional self-government. 53 The difference between fiscal federalism and competitive territorial politics is that the former assumes a high degree of individual mobility where residents may choose to live in the local authority best suited to their customer preferences while the latter is about organizational freedom to devise institutional forms and policy choices for the community as a whole. 54 For a more extensive survey of these issues see J. Loughlin and S. Martin, International Lessons on Balance of Funding Issues: initial paper, Report prepared for the Raynsford Balance of Funding Review Group, November 2003. 55 J. Caulfield, ‘Local Government Finance in OECD Countries’, Paper presented to ‘Local Government at the Millenium’ International Seminar, February 19th, 2000, University of New South Wales, referring to C. M. Tiebout (1956), ‘A Pure Theory of Local Government Expenditures’, Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 64, p. 5. and R. A. Musgrave, Public Finance in Theory and Practice (New York: McGraw Hill, 1973). 56 O’Connor, op. cit. 57 Caulfield, op. cit. 58 Council of Europe, ‘The financial resources of local authorities in relation to their responsibilities: a litmus test for subsidiarity’, 4th General Report on Political Monitoring of the Implementation of the European Charter of Local Self-Government, Rapporteur, Mr Jean-Claude Frécon, Strasbourg, 20 April 2000. 59 See M. Bennett, J. Fairley and M. McAteer, Devolution in Scotland: The impact on local government, Joseph Rowntree Foundation, July 2002. 60 Th. A. J Toonen and F. Hendriks, ‘Gemeenten en hogere overheden’, In A. F. A. Korsten en P. W. Tops, Lokaal bestuur in Nederland, Samsom, 1998, pp. 122–135. 61 See J. Loughlin, ‘The Regional Question, Subsidiarity and the Future of Europe’, in S. Weatherill and U. Bernitz (eds), The role of regions and subnational actors in the European Union (Oxford: Hart Publishing, 2005). 62 The following scholars are among the ‘younger’ generations who have developed research in this area: Richard Balme, Bernard Jouve, Patrick Le Galès,

212 Notes Emmanuel Négrier and Andy Smith (who, although British, may be classified as an ‘honorary’ French scholar). 63 My colleague in Cardiff Alistair Cole has been at the forefront of this research in the UK and has produced (sometimes with other scholars) a number of extremely important analyses of French subnational governance. See especially A. Cole and P. John, Local governance in England and France (London, New York: Routledge, 2001).

1 Centralization and Decentralization in French History 1 F. Braudel, The identity of France, 2 Volumes (London: Collins, 1988–1990). 2 R. Martelli, Faut-il defendre la Nation? (Paris: La Dispute/SNÉDIT, 1998), p. 56. 3 The Salians were the fourth century Frankish people from whom the Merovingians were descended. 4 R. Martelli, op. cit., p. 60. 5 Ibid. 6 G. Duby, The three orders: feudal society imagined (Chicago; London: University of Chicago Press, 1980). 7 C. Tilly, ‘War making and state making as organized crime’, in P. Evans, D. Rueschemeyer, T. Skocpol (eds), Bringing the State back in (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), pp. 169–187. 8 Some of the most frequently encountered are as follows: Pouce, approx. 1 inch, the twelfth part of a pied. Pied, a little more than the English foot. Aune, approx. 1.2 metres (sometimes much less). Toise, six pieds. Lieue (cf. English ‘league’), approx. 4 kilometres. Livre, approx. 1 pound (still used to mean half a kilogramme). Quintal, 100 livres. Boisseau, approx. 1 decalitre. Pinte, a pint. Setier, between 150 and 300 litres (grain); 8 pints (liquid). Muid, approx. 268 litres (liquid); 1,872 litres (dry goods). Arpent, a little more than one acre. See Peter France, ‘Weights and Measures’, The New Oxford Companion to Literature in French. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), [Oxford Reference Online (Oxford University Press). Cardiff University. http://www.oxfordreference.com/views/ENTRY.html?subview=Main&entry=t188 .e4859]. 9 There were parlements at: Aix (1501), Besançon (1422), Bordeaux, Dijon (1477), Les Dombes (1623), Douai (1668), Grenoble (1453), Metz (1633), Nancy (1768–1775), Paris (mid-13th century), Pau (1620), Rennes (1554), Rouen (1499), Toulouse (1443). The date in brackets indicates the year they were founded. 10 The ‘noblesse de robe’ were those who purchased titles – rather than like contemporary business people ‘purchasing’ seats in the House of Lords by donating large sums of money to the party in power – and the ‘noblesse d’épée’ (‘nobility of the sword’) were those who were descended from the mediaeval knights. 11 Gregory of Tours gives the date of this as 496 AD but contemporary historians have suggested other dates such as 503, 506 or 508. See E. A. Livingstone, ‘Clovis’, The Concise Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000).

Notes 213 12 See E. A. Livingstone, ‘Cathars’, The Concise Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000 13 Calvinism abolished the clerical hierarchy and its ministers were appointed (‘called’) by the congregation themselves. Within these communities, however, there often reigned a strict and authoritarian discipline exercised by the elders of the congregation. Nevertheless, this form of Protestantism had a direct influence on the development of modern democracy. 14 This is a rather loose term which probably includes a variety of beliefs in God but has been assigned to a number of famous historical figures such as Newton and Galileo. At the least in the latter case, this seems to be mistaken since Galileo, for all his problems with ecclesiastical authority, seems to have remained a faithful Roman Catholic until his death. 15 ‘L’homme est né libre, et partout il est dans les fers’. 16 See G. Kates (ed.), The French Revolution: recent debates and new controversies (London, New York: Routledge, 1998). 17 M. Bouloiseau, La République jacobine: 10 août 1792–1799 thermidor an II (Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1972). 18 ‘Corporatist’, in this sense, means seeing society as resembling a human body (from the Latin ‘corpus’) in which the parts are different, with a hierarchical structure in which the inferior (the limbs) obeys the superior (the head) 19 R. Martelli, op. cit., pp. 89–110. 20 J. Hayward, Governing France: The One and Indivisible Republic (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1983) 2nd Ed. 21 The new calendar was adopted in late 1793 and lasted for about 12 years. It was meant both to symbolize the break with Christianity, with the new year I (represented in Roman numerals) beginning with the establishment of the Republic in 1792, and to be more directly related to the seasons – Nivôse (‘snowy’) beginning in late December, Thermose (‘hot’) beginning late July, etc. Each day had ten hours, each hour 100 minutes, and each minute 100 seconds although this new way of calculating time never really caught on while the revolutionary months were more successful although the system was abolished by Napoleon I in 1806. 22 Quoted in R. Martelli, op. cit., p. 134–135. 23 We have chosen to translate the French word ‘commune’ by ‘municipality’, which is the more common usage in local government studies in Europe. 24 For an excellent history of local democracy and decentralization in France, see V. Schmidt, Democratizing France: the political and administrative history of decentralization (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990). 25 M. Bouloiseau, op. cit., p. 58. 26 Ibid. 27 Ibid. 28 J. De Maistre, Les Considérations sur la France [1796], présentation d’Alain Peyrefitte (Paris: Imprimerie nationale, 1993) and L. De Bonald, Théorie du pouvoir politique et religieux [1796]; (Paris: Union générale d’éditions, 1965). 29 This was a version of Catholicism that was the exact opposite of Gallicanism and stressed the political as well as spiritual authority of the pope in Rome. 30 See J. Wright, The regionalist movement in France, 1890–1914: Jean Charles-Brun and French political thought (Oxford: Clarendon, 2003) and C. Gras and G. Livet (eds), Régions et régionalisme en France: du XVIIe siècle à nos jours (Paris: Presses Universitaires de Frances, 1977). 31 Cited in R. Martelli, op. cit., p. 146. 32 P. Bodineau, La Régionalisation (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1995), p. 14.

214 Notes 33 J-F. Gravier, Paris et le desert français (Paris: Flammarion, 1947). 34 The name derives from the provençal word félibre which means ‘honour’. 35 Alexis de Tocqueville, De la démocratie en Amérique (Paris: Vrin, 1990 [originally published between 1835–1840]). 36 J. Loughlin ‘Personalism and Federalism in Inter-war France’, in P. Stirk (ed.), The Context of European Unity: the Inter war Period (London: Francis Pinter, 1988), pp. 188–200. 37 Cited in J-J. Dayries and M. Dayries, La Régionalisation, 3rd edition (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1986). 38 P. Bodineau, op. cit., pp. 17–18. 39 R. Martelli, op. cit., p. 148. 40 R. Rémond, L’Anticléricalisme en France: de 1815 à nos jours, 2nd edition (Bruxelles: Editions Complexe, 1985). 41 E. Weber, Peasants Into Frenchmen: The Modernization of Rural France, 1870–1914 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1976). 42 Marcel Pagnol provides an amusing account of these conflicts in his autobiographical Souvenirs d’Enfance, especially the first volume, La Gloire de mon père, since his father is the instituteur of Aubagne in the south of France. 43 J. Loughlin, ‘Personalism and Federalism in Inter war France’, op. cit.; and A. Greilsammer, Les mouvements fédéralistes en France de 1945 à 1974 (Paris: Presses d’Europe, 1975).

2 The ‘Trente Glorieuses’ (1945–1975) and their Aftermath 1 On the notion of ‘state tradition’ see K. Dyson, The state tradition in Western Europe: a study of an idea and institution (Oxford: Martin Robertson, 1980) and for a more contemporary application of the notion: J. Loughlin and B. G. Peters, ‘State Traditions, Administrative Reform and Regionalization’, in M. Keating and J. Loughlin (eds), The Political Economy of Regionalism, 1997, pp. 4–62. 2 F. Braudel, L’identité de la France, op. cit.; J-. F. Gravier, Paris et le désert français (Paris: Flammarion, 1947); M. Crozier, La société bloquée (Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 1970); J-P. Worms, ‘Le préfet et ses notables’, Sociologie du travail, vol. 3 (1966), pp. 249–275; M. Crozier and J-C. Thoenig, ‘La régulation des systèmes organisées complexes’, Revue Française de Sociologie, vol. 16, no. 1 (1975), pp. 3–32; P. Grémion, Le pouvoir périphérique (Paris: Les Editions du Seuil, 1976); E. Todd, La Nouvelle France (Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 1988); H. Le Bras and E. Todd, L’Invention de la France: atlas anthropologique et politique (Paris: Librairie Générale Française, 1981). 3 Braudel, Chapter 1, pp. 28–110. 4 Ibid. 5 Op. cit. 6 Here it means simply a family with two parents and their children. 7 Op. cit. 8 For example, his descriptions of Catholic theology seem to be drawn mainly from popular catechisms and, in the opinion of this author, fail to do justice to the richness and complexity of French Catholic life. 9 ‘in fact, she [France] has had to overcome obstacles and divisions, and to carry with her a mass of history which is stagnant, contradictory, weighing her down and heavy like the earth’. 10 C. Debbasch and J-M. Pontier, La société française (Paris: Dalloz, 1989), pp. 623–654.

Notes 215 11 M. Parodi, L’Economie et la Société française de 1945 à 1970 (Paris: Armand Colin, 1971). 12 Ibid., p. 15. 13 See J. Loughlin, ‘Regionalist and Federalist Movements in Contemporary France’, in M. Burgess (ed.), Comparative Federalism and Federation (London: Croom Helm, 1986) and, for the interwar period, J. Loughlin, ‘Personalism and Federalism in Inter-war France’, in P. Stirk (ed.), The Context of European Unity: the Inter-war Period (London: Francis Pinter, 1988), pp. 188–200. 14 Alan Milward, The European Rescue of the Nation-State, 2nd edition (London: Routledge, 2000). 15 J. Loughlin, op. cit. (1986). 16 The PAR’s barely had time to get off the ground when De Gaulle returned to power on the back of the Algerian crisis and they were then held in abeyance. This led to serious political difficulties in Corsica. See J. Loughlin, Regionalism and Ethnic Nationalism in France: a Case Study of Corsica (Florence: European University Institute, 1989). 17 See D. E. Ashford, ‘In search of the Etat Providence’, in J. F. Hollifield and G. Ross (eds), Searching for the New France (New York and London: Routledge, 1991). 18 G. Esping-Anderson, The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism (Cambridge: Polity, 1990). 19 T. H. Marshall, Citizenship and social class: and other essays (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1950). 20 J. Loughlin, ‘The “Transformation” of Governance: New Directions in Policy and Politics’. Australian Journal of Politics and History, vol. 50, no. 1, March 2004, pp. 8–22. 21 Mendras, H. (1994) La Seconde Révolution française 1965–1984 (Paris: Gallimard, 1994) 22 INSEE, France La France en bref (France in tables) (2005) http://www.insee. fr/fr/ppp/publications/intfrcbref.pdf. 23 For a treatment of Brittany and Languedoc-Roussillon, see M. Keating, J. Loughlin and K. Deschouwer, Culture, Institutions and Regional Development: a Study of Eight European Regions (Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 2003), chapter 5. 24 J. Loughlin, op. cit. (1989). 25 Similar approaches were applied under the Wilson Labour governments in the UK during the same period. 26 D. L. Hanley and A. P. Kerr (eds), May ’68: coming of age (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1989). 27 ‘The centuries-long process of centralization that was for so long necessary in order that France could achieve and maintain its unity, despite the differences among the provinces that were gradually attached to it, is now over. On the contrary, the economic success of tomorrow will be built on its regional activities. 28 In French constitutional law, collectivités territoriales have a stronger status than the établissements publics. 29 Mendras, op. cit. 30 After May ’68, there was a mushrooming of such movements which drew in much of the student population and even many high school students (lycéens). 31 A. Touraine, The Voice and the Eye: An Analysis of Social Movements (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1981). 32 In 1977, three men were sentenced to prison terms for sexual contact with 12- and 13-year-old children. Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir and two

216 Notes intellectuals who later became Socialist ministers signed a letter of protest in Le Monde. ‘Three years in prison for some caresses and kisses: enough of this!’ said a manifesto signed by the four who where joined by other leading intellectuals such as Michel Foucault (who subsequently died of AIDS), Roland Barthes, Jacques Derrida, Philippe Sollers, Alain Robbe-Grillet, and Louis Aragon. Their open letter stated: ‘The law should recognize the right of children and adolescent to maintain sexual relations with whomever they choose!’ Today, those who are still alive from among this group are deeply embarrassed by their action. 33 See J. Loughlin, op. cit. (1989). 34 D. S. Bell and B. Criddle, The French Socialist Party: The Emergence of a Party of Government, 2nd edition (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988). 35 A. Cole, François Mitterrand: a study in political leadership (London; New York: Routledge, 1994.).

3 The Decentralization Programme: An Overview (1982–2006) 1 There is now quite a vast literature dealing with various aspects of French decentralization. For excellent overviews of the 1982 French decentralization reforms, see V. Schmidt, Democratizing France: the political and administrative history of decentralization (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990); J.-M. Ohnet, Histoire de la décentralisation française (Paris: Livre de Poche, 1996); P. Bodineau and M. Verpeaux, Histoire de la decentralisation, coll. ‘Que Sais-je?’, 2e édition (Paris: PUF, 1997); M. Verpeaux, ‘La décentralisation depuis les lois de 1982’, Special Issue: ‘Les collectivités locales en mutation’, Cahiers français, no. 293, octobre-décembre 1999, pp. 3–11. An excellent treatment of the Senate’s position may be found in A. Delcamp, Le Sénat et la Décentralisation (Paris: Economica, 1991). 2 For an analysis of the first ten years after the reforms were initiated, see J. Loughlin and S. Mazey (eds), The End of the French unitary state?: ten years of regionalization in France (1982–1992), (London: Frank Cass, 1995). 3 J. Rondin, Le Sacre des Notables: La France en décentralisation (Paris: Fayard, 1985). 4 See the references in the previous chapter. 5 This kind of pessimism was common among liberal academics in the AngloSaxon world who had become disillusioned with the failure of the great policy programmes of the 1960s which sought, but failed, to eradicate social problems such as poverty and racism. This led to a generalized scepticism about whether any policy reform was possible. In the case of France, an influential English critic of decentralization and regionalism was the Oxford scholar Vincent Wright. See, for example, his ‘Questions d’un Jacobin anglais aux regionalistes français’, Pouvoirs, vol. 19, 1981. 6 Loi n° 82–213 du 2 mars 1982 relative aux droits et libertés des communes, des départements et des régions. 7 M. Verpeaux, op. cit., p. 3. 8 Ibid. 9 Similarly, the UK Conservatives had strongly opposed the 1987 Labour government’s devolution plans but, once the Scottish Parliament and National Assembly for Wales were up and running, they realized that these new institutions were their only possibility of having some representation in Scottish and Welsh politics and they subsequently embraced the reforms.

Notes 217 10 Again, one might draw a parallel with the situation of the UK Labour Party, which also experienced a long period in opposition and which also chose devolution as one of its new policy approaches. 11 L. J. Sharpe (ed.), Decentralist trends in western democracies (London: Sage, 1979). 12 An in-depth analysis of French citizenship may be found in S. Duchesne, Citoyenneté à la française (Paris: Presses de Sciences Po, 1997). 13 M. Crozier, Le Phénomène Bureaucratique: essai sur les tendances bureaucratiques des systèmes d’organisation modernes et sur leurs relations en France avec le système social et culturel (Paris: Seuil, 1963) and La Société Bloquée (Paris: Seuil, 1970). 14 This section is indebted to the excellent overview provided by M. Verpeaux, op. cit. 15 Loi n°82–213 du 2 mars 1982 relative aux droits et libertés des communes, des départements et des régions. 16 Loi n°83–663 du 22 juillet 1983 complétant la loi n°83–8 du 7 janvier 1983 relative à la répartition des compétences entre les communes, les départements, les régions de l’Etat. 17 See J. Loughlin, Regionalism and Ethnic Nationalism in France: A Case Study of Corsica (Florence: European University Institute, 1989) and H. Hintjens, J. Loughlin and C. Olivesi, ‘The Status of Overseas France and Corsica’, in J. Loughlin and S. Mazey (eds), The End of the French Unitary State? Ten Years of Regionalization in France (London: Frank Cass Ltd., 1995). 18 A. Delcamp and M-J Tulard, ‘Une décentralisation à la recherche d’un second souffle’, in A. Delcamp and J. Loughlin (eds.), La décentralisation dans les États de l’Union européenne (Paris: La Documentation Française, 2003), pp. 153–178. 19 Lois du 7 janvier 1983 et 22 juillet 1983 relatives à la repartition des competences entre les communes, les departments, les regions et l’Etat, completed the lois du 25 janvier 1985 and 6 janvier 1986. 20 In fact, the inspiration for the principles underlying these laws came from the Guichard Report, Vivre ensemble, Rapport de la commission de Développement des responsabilités locales, présidée par Olivier Guichard (Paris: La Documentation française, 1977), p. 97. 21 A. Delcamp and M-J. Tulard, op. cit., p. 166. 22 Ibid. 23 Loi n° 95–115 du 4 février 1995 relative à l’expérimentation du transfert ferroviaire par six régions. 24 La Loi du 13 juillet 1983 portant droits et obligations des fonctionnaires [a law dealing with all civil servants but including local administrators] and the Loi du 26 janvier 1984 sur les dispositions statutaires relatives à la function publique territoriale. 25 Loi du 13 juillet 1987. 26 Loi d’orientation du 6 février 1992 relative à l’administration territoriale de la République. 27 These were not binding local referendums. See M. Verpeaux, op. cit., p. 10. 28 Also mayor of Bordeaux at this time. 29 La Loi d’orientation pour l’aménagement et le développement du territoire (LOADT) du 4 février 1995 – known as the Pasqua Law. 30 La loi d’orientation du 25 juin 1999, relative à l’aménagement et au développement durable du territoire (LOADDT), called the Voynet Law; la loi du 12 juillet 1999, relative au renforcement et à la simplification de la coopération intercommunale, the Chevènement Law; and la loi 12 décembre 2000, relative à la

218 Notes Solidarité et au renouvellement urbains, the SRU Law. 31 Loi no. 2000–1208 du 13 décembre 2000 relative à la solidarité et au renouvellement urbains. 32 Le projet de loi relative à la démocratie de proximité, first reading adopted on 5 February 2002. 33 Commission pour l’avenir de la decentralization presidé par Pierre Mauroy, Refonder l’action publique locale, rapport au Premier minister (Paris: La Documentation française, 2000). 34 Rhône-Alpes, Ile-de-France, Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur, Languedoc-Roussillon and Pays de la Loire. 35 He had been a local councillor in Poitiers, a councillor and then president of the region of Poitou-Charentes and deputy-mayor of Chasseneuil-du-Poitou. Between 1985 and 1989 he was elected to the European Parliament on the UDFRPR list. 36 Loi constitutionnelle n° 2003–276 du 28 mars 2003 relative à l’organisation décentralisée de la République 37 A more accurate translation might actually be ‘autonomy’ but this word has a troubled history in the French political lexicon. 38 A. Cole, ‘Decentralization in France: Central Steering, Capacity Building and Identity Construction’, French Politics, vol. 4, 2006, pp. 31–57.

4 The Municipality (Commune): Between Local Democracy and Effective Governance 1 It is notoriously difficult to measure the population of capital cities and sometimes Paris is regarded as Europe’s largest capital and sometimes London has that position. 2 The following analysis is based on P. Julien, ‘Mesurer un univers urbain en expansion’, Économie et Statistique, no. 336, 2000, pp. 3–33. 3 The following analysis draws on P. Bessy-Pietri, ‘Les formes récentes de la croissance urbaine’, Économie et Statistique, no. 336, 2000, pp. 35–52. 4 See T. Le Jeannic, ‘Radiographie d’un fait de société: la périurbanisation’, INSEE PREMIERE, no. 535, juin 1997 (no page numbers). 5 The following descriptions draw on E. Vital-Durand, Les Collectivités Territoriales en France, 4ième édition (Paris: Hachette, 2000). 6 Article 61 de la loi du 5 avril 1884, prepare par M. René Waldeck-Rousseau, Ministère de l’Intérieur. 7 Loi du 19 novembre 1982. 8 Although many mayors are women, here we will use the generic ‘he’ in order to make the text more readable. 9 A useful overview of how 1982 decentralization affected the municipalities and other local governments may be found in E. Négrier, ‘The Changing Role of French Local Government’, West European Politics, vol. 22, no. 4, October 1999, pp. 120–140. 10 Figures taken from the website of the Ministry of the Interior, Direction Général pour les Collectivités Locales: http://www.dgcl.interieur.gouv.fr/Publications/CL_en_ chiffres_2004/Chap1_cartes.pdf 11 Figures taken from P. Deuvet, ‘Structures of Co-operation within Local Government’, in Institut International d’Administration Publique, Local Government in France (Paris: La Documentation Française, 2001, translated by Mary and Anne Stevens), p. 126.

Notes 219 12 Figures for 1999 taken from J.-M. Bécet, ‘The Role of the Commune’, in Institut International d’Administration Publique, Local Government in France (Paris: La Documentation Française, 2001, translated by Mary and Anne Stevens), p. 99. 13 Friends of the author, who is not a baba cool! 14 Jacques Ziller, ‘Fragmentation/Participation: Quelle Bonne Dimension?’, Pouvoirs, vol. 95, 2000, pp. 19–32. 15 The following section is indebted to the OECD Report, Territorial Review of France (2006). 16 Loi du 22 mars 1890. 17 Décret du 20 mai 1955. 18 Ordonnance du 5 juin 1959. 19 Loi d’amélioration de la décentralisation du 5 janvier 1988. 20 S. Regourd, ‘Organisation et fonctionnement des collectivités locales: nouveaux enjeux’, Les collectivités locales en mutation. Cahiers français. no. 23, octobredécembre, 1999, pp. 41–46. 21 Ordonnance du 5 janvier, 1959. 22 Loi du 31 décembre 1970. 23 Loi du 31 décembre 1966. 24 Regourd, op cit., supra. 25 Loi du 6 février d’orientation relative à l’administration territoriale de la République (ATR). 26 Regourd, op. cit., p. 43. 27 Ibid. 28 Loi du 12 juillet, 1999 relative au renforcement et à la simplification de la cooperation intercommunal. 29 Regourd, op. cit., p. 45. 30 Assemblée des Communautés de France, État de l’intercommunalité, 2004. Available at: http://www.intercommunalites.com/cooper/documents/ETAT2004.pdf 31 La Loi d’orientation pour l’aménagement et le développement du territoire (LOADT) du 4 février 1995. 32 La loi d’orientation du 25 juin 1999, relative à l’aménagement et au développement durable du territoire (LOADDT), known as the Voynet Law and the Chevènement Law referred to in fn. 26. 33 The baillage was a local area administered by a royal judge, the sénéchaussée the jurisdiction of a royal officer. 34 M. Fabriès-Verfaillie and P. Stragiotti, La France des Régions (Rosny: Bréal, 2000), p. 46. 35 J-L. Guigou, ‘Editorial’, Pays et agglomération: vers une recomposition du territoire. Supplément au no. 172 de la Lettre de la DATAR, Octobre 2001. 36 Pays et agglomération: vers une recomposition du territoire. Supplément au no. 172 de la Lettre de la DATAR, Octobre 2001, p. 6. 37 ‘The pays acts according to the logic of helping them to help themselves and of subsidiarity. Even if it co-ordinates and stimulates, innovates and adopts a longer-term perspective, assists municipalities and intercommunal associations on technical matters in order to enable them to draw up contracts with the state and with the regions, the pays nevertheless must remain a “project territory”’. 38 R. Rhodes, Understanding governance: policy networks, governance, reflexivity and accountability (Buckingham: Open University Press, 1997); J. Leca, ‘Sur la gouvernance démocratique: entre théorie et méthode de recherche empirique’, Politique européenne. n°1, 2000, pp. 108–129; P. Le Galès, ‘Du gouvernement des villes à la gouvernance urbaine’, Revue française de science politique, vol. 45, no. 1, fév., 1995, pp. 57–95. See also J. Loughlin, ‘The ‘Transformation’ of Governance: New

220 Notes

39 40 41 42 43 44

45 46 47 48 49 50

Directions in Policy and Politics’. Australian Journal of Politics and History, vol. 50, no. 1, March 2004, pp. 8–22. See S. Baker, Environmental and sustainable development (London: Routledge, 2005). Pays et agglomération: vers une recomposition du territoire. Supplément au no. 172 de la Lettre de la DATAR, Octobre 2001, p. 10. Anna Geppert, ‘Comprendre les “pays urbains”’, Pouvoirs locaux, no. 54, III/2002, pp. 27–33. DATAR, Etat des lieux des pays au 1 septembre 2004. http://www.projetdeterritoire. com/spip/IMG/pdf/Etats_des_lieux_09_04_Screen.pdf Côte d’Azur (23 per cent), Corsica (7 per cent) and Ile-de-France (0,2 per cent). M. Keating, J. Loughlin and K. Deschouwer, Culture, Institutions and Regional Development: a Study of Eight European Regions (Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 2005), See chapter 5 on Brittany and Languedoc-Roussillon. J. Loughlin, Regionalism and Ethnic Nationalism in France: a Case-Study of Corsica. Florence: European University Institute, 1989. DATAR, Etat des lieux des pays au 1 septembre 2005, p. 5. See Pouvoirs locaux, no. 54, III/2002, p. 17. N. Portier, ‘ ‘Pays’: passer des projets aux contrats’, in Pouvoirs locaux, no. 54, III/2002, p. 17–25. Ibid., p. 21. For a treatment of the French approach to neighbourhood councils compared to the approaches in the Italy, the Netherlands and the UK, see J. Loughlin, S. Lux and S. Martin, The Role of the Neighbourhood in Regeneration: some lessons from Europe (London: Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, 2004) from which the following section is drawn.

5 The ‘Meso’ Level: The Region vs. the Département 1 It is true that Spain and Italy also have several levels of subnational governance: in both countries the ‘provinces’ are situated between the Autonomous Communities (Spain) and the Regions (Italy). The difference with the French case is that the provinces are in a subordinate position to the ‘regional’ level while in France there is no hierarchical relationship. 2 TNS/Sofres/DATAR, 12 janvier 2002, http://www.tns-sofres.com/etudes/pol/ 310102_datar_r.htm 3 F. Dreyfus and F. D’Arcy, Les Institutions Politiques et Administratives de la Franc (Paris: Economica, 1985). 4 For a detailed account see: V. Schmidt, Democratizing France: the political and administrative history of decentralization (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990). 5 A. Delcamp, Le Sénat et la Décentralisation (Paris: Economica, 1991), p. 103. 6 Décret du 13 janvier 1970. 7 Quoted in A. Delcamp, op. cit., p. 104. 8 Ibid., p. 104. 9 Ibid., p. 105. 10 F. Dreyfus and F. D’Arcy, op. cit., p. 309. 11 Quoted in P. Deuvet, ‘The Role of the département’, Local Government in France (Paris: La Documentation Française, 2001), a chapter on which the following section draws.

Notes 221 12 Ibid., p. 86. 13 This is aimed at very poor and disadvantaged people and is the responsibility of the state. It tops up or replaces social security. 14 J.-P. Worms, ‘Le préfet et ses notables’, Sociologie du Travail, no. 3, juillet-août 1966, pp. 249–275. 15 J.-J. Dayries and M. Dayries, La Régionalisation, 3rd edition (Paris: PUF, 1978) mention that there were 44 reports or bills tabled along these lines during the Third Republic. 16 Ibid. 17 Ibid., p. 12. 18 For a good history of this movement, see M. Nicolas, Emsav: Histoire du mouvement breton (Paris, Syros, 1982). 19 See J. Loughlin, ‘Regionalism and Ethnic Nationalism in France’, in Yves Mény and Vincent Wright (eds), Centre-periphery relations in Western Europe (London: Allen & Unwin, 1985); J. Loughlin, Regionalism and Ethnic Nationalism in France: a Case-study of Corsica (Florence: European University Institute, 1989). 20 See Dayries and Dayries, op. cit. 21 See J. Loughlin, Regionalism and Ethnic Nationalism in France: a Case-study of Corsica (Florence: European University Institute, 1989) and E. BernabéuCasanova, Le Nationalisme Corse: Genèse, succès et échec (Paris: L’Harmattan, 1997). 22 Jean-François Gravier, Paris et le désert français (Paris, Le Portulan, 1947). 23 There are numerous studies on this movement. A classical study is J. E. S. Hayward, ‘From functional regionalism to functional representation in France’, Political Studies, vol. XVII, March 1969, pp. 48–75. See also Michel Nicolas, Emsav: Histoire du mouvement breton (Paris, Syros, 1982). 24 Décret du 11 décembre 1954. 25 Interestingly, the first Corsican regionalist movement was called the Mouvement du 29 novembre, which referred to the fact that Corsican became fully French on 30 November 1789 and, in the eyes of these early functional regionalists, was still therefore on the eve of complete integration. The implication was that Corsica, as a fully French region, had the right to demand the central state to help its development. I have analyzed this movement in my published doctoral thesis: Regionalism and Ethnic Nationalism in France: a Case-study of Corsica (Florence: European University Institute, 1989). 26 See J. Loughlin, op. cit., 1989 and J. Loughlin, ‘Les Pieds Noirs en Corse’, in JeanPierre Roux (ed.) La Guerre d’Algérie et les Français (Paris: Fayard, 1990), pp. 362–368 27 See Dayries and Dayries, op. cit., pp. 23–24. 28 Ibid. 29 Arrêté du 28 octobre, 1956. 30 The number reduced to 21 regions with the amalgamation of Rhône and Alpes in 1960 and returned to 22 when Corsica left the Provence-Côte d’Azur in 1970. 31 Décret du 7 janvier 1960. 32 Dayries and Dayries, op. cit., p. 29. 33 Loi du 5 juillet 1972. 34 See L. Cohen-Solal, C. Bunodière, Les nouveaux socialistes (Paris: 1977). 35 The Marxist element was introduced mainly by left-wing students from the regions who were at universities in Paris, Lyon and Nice where, in the 1960s, Marxism was à la mode. The theory of ‘internal colonialism’ applied to the French regions was developed by these young radical regionalists.

222 Notes 36 On the attitudes of the French left to the regional problem, see Yves Mény, Centralisation et décentralisation dans le débat politique français (1945–1969) (Paris: Librairie Générale de Droit et de Jurisprudence, 1974); M. Phlipponeau, ‘La gauche et le régionalisme (1945–1974)’, in Gras et Livet (eds.), Régions et régionalisme en France (du XVIIIe siècle jusqu’à nos jours) (Paris: PUF, 1977), pp. 529–543; M. Rocard, ‘La région, une idée neuve pour la Gauche’, and P. Sadran, ‘Les socialistes et la région’, both in Pouvoirs, no. 19 (1981), pp. 131–147; for the attitude of the PCF see L’Humanité, 12/6/1976. 37 The PCF, for example, refused to recognize the PS term ‘minorities linguistiques and culturelles.’ and preferred to speak of the ‘langues de France et cultures regionales’, see the Parliamentary Bill tabled by the Communist group in the National Assembly, Journal Officiel, 30th July 1984, pp. 7–8. 38 Socialist Manifesto (Paris: 1981). 39 Quoted in Le Monde, 9/9/1981. 40 The issue arose when Pierre Joxe, then Minister of the Interior, reformed the Corsican Statut Particulier in 1991, with a parliamentary bill that included a reference to ‘le people corse’. See H. Hintjens, J. Loughlin and C. Olivesi, ‘The Status of Overseas France and Corsica’, in J. Loughlin and S. Mazey (eds), The End of the French Unitary State? Ten Years of Regionalization in France (London: Frank Cass Ltd., 1995). 41 See Jacques Rodin, Le sacre des notables, Fayard, 1985. See also Yves Mény, ‘La décentralisation’, in Administration 82 (Institut International d’Administration Publique), Paris, 1983, pp. 13–57 and by the same author, ‘Decentralization in Socialist France’, West European Politics, Vol. 7, no. 1, 1984, pp. 65–79. 42 A more perceptive treatment was Mark Kesselman. ‘The end of Jacobinism? The Socialist regime and decentralization’, Contemporary French Civilization, Fall/Winter 1983/4, Vol. VIII, nos 1&2, pp. 84–103. 43 Art. 59 de la loi de 1982. 44 The regional president is elected by an absolute majority of the council or, if noone is elected after two rounds of voting, by a simple majority in a third round, cf. article L4133–1 du Code général des collectivités territoriales. 45 The CES has between 40 and 110 members divided among the following groups: 35 per cent nominated by business organizations; 35 per cent representing employees and teachers unions; 25 per cent representing associations active in the region; and 5 per cent consisting of persons chosen for their qualifications, cf. article L4134–1 du Code général des collectivités territoriales. 46 See the excellent report of the OECD, Examens territoriaux de l’OCDE (Paris: Editions de l’OCDE, 2006), pp. 160–172. 47 Ibid., p. 166. 48 Ibid. 49 See Rapport du Sénat sur l’avenir de la contractualisation Etat-régions, 16 July 2004. 50 Ibid., pp. 6–9. 51 The Finance Committee of the National Assembly stated that, by 30 December 2004, the state had paid only 55 per cent instead of the 70 per cent of what it had promised to pay, which represented a delay of a year and a half. Cited in OECD Report (2006), p. 165. 52 See M. Keating, J. Loughlin and K. Deschouwer, Culture, Institutions and Regional Development: a Study of Eight European Regions (Cheltenham: Edward Elgar), 2003, chapter 5, ‘Brittany and Languedoc-Roussillon.’ 53 This history of Corsican division was evident in the 2003 referendum on the creation of a new special statute for the island giving it slightly enhanced powers.

Notes 223 The result was: 51 per cent voted NO; 49 per cent voted YES! On the background to the referendum see J. Loughlin and C. Olivesi (eds), Autonomies Insulaires: vers une politique de différence pour la Corse (Ajaccio: Albiana, 1999) 54 H. Hintjens, J. Loughlin and C. Olivesi), ‘The Status of Overseas France and Corsica’ in J. Loughlin and S. Mazey, The End of the French Unitary State? Ten Years of Regionalization in France (London: Frank Cass Ltd., 1995). 55 CSA/La Croix/France 3 http://www.csa-tmo.fr/dataset/data2002/opi20021015a.htm 56 Observatoire du Politique Interrégional (OIP), Le Baromètre du fait régional. Enquête OIP 2003. http://oip.sciences-po.fr/fr/enquetes/barometre/barometre2003.pdf

6 The Politics of French Territorial Governance 1 For an excellent survey of political traditions in modern France, see Sudhir Hazareesingh, Political Traditions in Modern France (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994) 2 The French trade union tradition followed this approach which was hostile to the ‘bourgeois’ state and the political parties associated with it, in contrast to British or German trade unionism, which were closely associated with the British Labour and German Social Democratic Parties respectively. 3 It has been suggested that Lenin saw himself as a latter-day Robespierre. It is interesting that Lenin had a statue erected in his memory in Russia while there has been one erected in France, showing the French ambivalence towards this historical figure. 4 The PCF did have some rural strongholds, for example, in some parts of rural Brittany, the wine-growing areas of the Midi and even Corsica, but militants in these areas adhered strictly to the centralist line of the national party. 5 R. Rémond, Les Droites en France, 4th edition (Paris: Auber-Montaigne, 1982) 6 Ministère de l’intérieur et de l’aménagement du territoire/DGCL, Les Collectivités locales en chiffres 2006, Chapter 8, ‘Les femmes et les hommes dans les collectivités locales’, p. 105. Figures established after the 2001 municipal elections. 433,928 of these councillors were in municipalities of less than 3,500 inhabitants which still left over 80,000 in the remainder. 7 This will increase to 346 in 2010. 8 For a description of its powers and functions see Anne Stevens, The Government and Politics of France, 3rd edition (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003). Jean Cluzel, Le Sénat dans la société française (Paris: Economica, 1990), is an excellent presentation by a senator who clearly loves the institution. For the attitude of the Senate towards decentralization, see Alain Delcamp, Le Sénat de la Décentralisation (Paris: Economica, 1991). 9 These were during the Second Republic (1848–1851) and periods of transition between regime changes. 10 This respect shown to older people as fonts of wisdom has been mostly abandoned in contemporary western society with the cult of ‘youth’ and the attempt to include ever younger people in politics. But it survives in France during elections as, when there is a tie in a competition for a position, it is the older of the two candidates who qualifies for the post. 11 Article 24 states that: ‘Le Sénat … assure la représentation des collectivités territoriales de la République’. 12 In 2000, senators put down over 1000 amendments to a bill on housing provision that would have seriously impacted on local authorities and 600 of the amendments were incorporated. See Stevens, op. cit., p. 169.

224 Notes 13 See J. Cluzel, op. cit., pp. 71–72. 14 The French term cumul des mandats has a negative connotation with the French public and for this reason its defenders have promoted the more neutral term ‘l’exercise simultané des mandats’ as pointed out in C. Guettier, ‘Les lois du 5 avril 2000 sur le cumul des mandats électoraux et fonctions electives’, Actualité juridique du droit administrative, no. 5, 20 mai 2000, p. 427. 15 In Ireland, it is permitted to be a local councillor and a member of parliament. But in most countries, the simultaneous holding of certain offices is forbidden: in Germany, one cannot be a member of both the federal and Land parliaments; in Italy, a member of the national parliament cannot be a regional councillor, president of a province or mayor of a town of more than 20 000 inhabitants; in Spain, membership of the Cortes and of an Autonomous Community assembly is forbidden and a 1985 law limited the number of offices that can be held simultaneously to two. 16 P. Sadran, ‘La Vie Politique Locale’, Les Collectivités Locales en Mutation (Paris: La Documentation Française, Cahiers Français), No. 293, octobre-décembre 1999, p. 27. 17 Stevens, op. cit., p. 170. 18 An opinion poll carried out by IPSOS showed that 61 per cent of the general public would like to see the system completely abolished, while 35 per cent were in favour of keeping it and 4 per cent did not express an opinion. Left-wing supporters were marginally (64 per cent) more disposed to abolition than those on the right (57 per cent). http://www.ipsos.fr/Canalipsos/poll/7142.asp. 19 Guettier, op. cit., p. 427. 20 Y. Mény, Corruption de la République (Paris: Fayard, 1992), p. 63: ‘Tout se passe comme si les avantages fonctionnels du cumul effaçaient ses inconvénients éthiques: la solution des problèmes l’emporte sur le conflit d’intérêt potentiel’ (‘It is as if the functional advantages of the system of cumuls obliterated its ethical difficulties: problem-solving is more important than potential conflicts of interest’). 21 P. Sadran, op. cit., pp. 28–29. 22 Loi organique no. 85–1405 du 30 décembre 1985 tendant à la limitation du cumul des mandats électoraux et des fonction électives par les parlementaires, and the Loi ordinaire no. 85–1406 tendant à limiter le cumul des mandats électoraux et des fonctions électives. Only one of the following positions could be held at the same time by a deputy or senator: the European Parliament; a regional council; the Corsican Assembly (added in 1995); a departmental council; the municipality of Paris; mayor of a municipality of 20 000 inhabitants or more; deputy mayor of a municipality of 100 000 inhabitants or more. 23 Loi organique n° 2000–294 du 5 avril 2000 relative aux incompatibilités entre mandats électoraux (qui traite de la situation des parlementaires nationaux) and loi ordinaire n° 2000–295 du 5 avril 2000 relative à la limitation du cumul des mandats électoraux et des fonctions électives et à leurs conditions d’exercice. 24 National politicians may sit in only one of the following bodies: regional councils; departmental councils; the Corsican Assembly; Paris municipality, a municipality of 3500 inhabitants or more. 25 A regional or departmental councillor can hold only one other election position at the local level. 26 P. Bréchon, ‘Les partis dans le système politique’, in Pierre Bréchon (ed.), Les partis politiques français (Paris: La Documentation Française, 2001), pp. 9–14. 27 Ibid.

Notes 225 28 The first period of cohabitation between Mitterrand and Chirac lasted from 1986 to 1988; the second, between Mitterrand and the right-wing leader Edouard Balladur was from 1993 to 1995; and the last between President Jacques Chirac and the socialist Lionel Jospin lasted from 1997 to 2002. 29 J.-J. Urvoas, ’Modes de scrutin: le principe des fusions aux municipales’, Revue politique et parlementaire, n° 991, novembre-décembre, 1997. ‘Minorities’ means here primarily political minorities, e.g., a left-wing minority in a right-dominated council, rather than ethnic or other kinds of minorities. 30 This section draws on J.-C. Bastion and N. Chabannier, Le droit des élections locales (Paris: L. G. D. J., 2004). 31 Loi no 82–974 du 19 novembre 1982 and Loi no 82–1170 du 31 décembre 1982. 32 Urvoas, op. cit. 33 P. Alliès, ‘Un mode de scrutin exemplaire’, Pouvoirs, no. 73, avril 1995, pp. 41–52. 34 The highest average method of PR consists of a number of steps: an electoral quota is established by dividing the number of votes cast by the number of available seats; – the votes each list obtains is divided by the quota and it receives the number of seats corresponding to the division. 35 P. Alliès, op. cit. 36 See also Y. Mény, ‘La République des fiefs’, Pouvoirs, no 60, p. 17 seq. 37 Y., La corruption de la République, op. cit. 38 J.-J. Urvoas, op. cit. 39 A new attempt to have single renewal every six years has been made by JeanPaul Bacquet who tabled a bill along these lines in February 2003. The bill is currently at the stage of a first reading. 40 See the bill presented to parliament in 2005 by senator Jean-Louis Masson, Proposition de loi relative à l’élection des conseillers généraux et remlaçant les cantons par des circonscriptions calquées sur les intercommunalités à fiscalité propre, Exposé des motifs. 41 J. P. Muret et al., Le Conseil Régional: nouveaux textes législatifs, démocratie, loi électorale, analyse financière, budget, actions régionales (Paris: Syros, 1986), pp. 32–33. 42 Loi du 10 juillet 1985 relative à l’élection des conseils régionaux. 43 Loi no 99–36 du 19 janvier 1999 relative au mode d’élection des conseillers régionaux et des conseillers à l’Assemblée de Corse et au fonctionnement des conseils régionaux. 44 For details see E. Vital-Durand, Les collectivités territoriales en France. 4th edition (Paris: Hachette, 2000). 45 Loi n° 2003–327 du 11 avril 2003 relative à l’élection des conseillers régionaux et des représentants au Parlement européen ainsi qu’à l’aide publique aux partis politiques. 46 For an exploration of these questions, see J. Loughlin et al., Subnational Democracy in the European Union: Challenges and Opportunities (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), which is based on a previous report drawn up by the same authors for the Committee of the Regions, Regional and Local Democracy in the European Union (Brussels: Committee of the Regions, 1999). The Council of Europe promulgated in 1985 the European Charter of Local Self-government which provides a legal framework for the exercise of local democracy and, through its Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of Europe, monitors the exercise the regional and local democracy in all its 46 member states. 47 D. Caroli, ‘Les élections municipales: six leçons’, Commentaire, no 71, automne 1995, pp. 625–628.

226 Notes 48 P. Habert and C. Ysmal (eds.), Elections municipales de 1989 (Paris: Le Figaro/ Etudes Politiques, 1989). 49 J.-L. Parodi, ‘Dans la logique des élections intermédiaires’, Revue politique et parlementaire, 903, avril 1983. 50 The following draws on the excellent series of regional and cantonal election studies directed by Pascal Perrineau and carried out by him and his colleagues in the CEVIPOF: P. Perrineau (ed.), Régions: le baptême des urnes (Paris: Pédone, 1987), which analyses the first regional elections held in 1986; P. Habert, P. Perrineau and C. Ysmal (eds), Le vote éclaté. Les elections régionales et cantonales des 22 et 26 mars 1992 (Paris: Département d’études politiques du Figaro et Presses de Sciences Po, 1992); P. Perrineau and D. Reynié (eds), Le vote incertain. Les éléctions régionales de 1998 (Paris: Presses de Sciences Po, 1999). 51 Y. Mény stated in 1974 that the left had gradually made a progression ‘[de] jacobine [à] décentralisatrice, [et de] départementaliste [à] régionaliste même si cette conversion reste timoré et suspecte’, Centralisation et décentralisation dans le débat politique français (Paris: L. G. D. J., 1974). 52 Figures taken from P. Perrineau, ‘Les elections régionales, passé et présent’, in P. Perrineau and D. Reynié (eds), op. cit, 1999, p. 26. 53 Loi no 99–36 du 19 janvier 1999 relative au mode d’élection des conseillers régionaux et des conseillers à l’Assemblée de Corse et au fonctionnement des conseils régionaux. For a full description, see E. Vital-Durand, op. cit., pp. 71–73. 54 P. Martin, ‘Les élections de mars 2004’, Commentaires, no 106, été 2004, pp. 443–451. 55 Loi no 2000–493 du 6 juin 2000 tendant à favoriser l’égal accès des femmes et des hommes aux mandats électoraux et fonctions électives. The ‘principle of parity’ states that for every group of six candidates in a list, three must be women and the difference between men and women in a list cannot be more than one. 56 P. Martin, op. cit., p. 446. 57 A. Percheron (ed.), La region An I: Etat des regions françaises un an après les elections de 198 (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1987). Annick Percheron was the first director of the OIP. She was succeeded by Élisabeth Dupoirier who has continued to publish the results of these surveys although a great deal of the data remains to be analysed. See É. Dupoirier, ‘Les élections régionales du 15 mars 1998 ou l’introuvable espace public regional’ and C. Dargent, op. cit., both in P. Perrineau and D. Reynié, op. cit., 1999, pp. 29–42 and 43–69 respectively, which use this data. 58 É. Dupoirier, ibid., p. 39.

7 Administering Territorial Governance: The State Strikes Back? 1 H. Machin, The Prefect in French Public Administration (London: Croom Helm, 1977). 2 Chaptal developed a method of increasing the alcohol content of unfermented wine by adding sugar to it, henceforth known as chaptalisation. 3 B. Le Clère and V. Wright, Les Préfets du Second Empire (Paris: Colin, 1973). 4 M. Verpeaux, ‘Historical and Constitutional Origins’, in Local Government in France (Paris: La Documentation Française, 2001), pp. 19–36. 5 See P. Williams, Crisis and Compromise, Politics in the Fourth Republic (London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1964).

Notes 227 6 See G. Marcou, ‘Bilan et avenir de la déconcentration’, L’organisation de la France, demain, Annuaire 2002 des Collectivités locales (Paris: CNRS Editions, 2002), pp. 25–49. 7 A useful overview of these theoretical approaches and a comparison with theoretical perspectives in other states may be found in the published doctoral thesis Im Tobin, Le préfet dans la decentralisation (Paris: L’Harmattan, 1997). This thesis was written under the direction of Michel Crozier. 8 M. Crozier, Le phénomène bureaucratique (Paris: Le Seuil, 1964). 9 J.-P. Worms, Une préfecture comme organisation (Paris: CSO, 1968). 10 J.-P. Worms, ‘Le préfet et ses notables’, Sociologie du Travail, 1966, pp. 246–275. 11 F. Dupuy and J.-C. Thoenig, Sociologie de l’administration française (Paris: Armand Colin, 1983). 12 This mirrors the work of Deil Wright in the United States who analysed along similar lines ‘intergovernmental relations’, that is relations between the different levels of government in the US federal system. See D. Wright, Understanding intergovernmental relations: public policy and participants’ perspectives in local, state, and national governments (North Scituate, Mass: Duxbury Press, 1978). R. A. W. Rhodes applied the same approach to the United Kingdom. See his Control and power in central-local government relations (Farnborough, Hants: Gower, 1981). 13 P. Bernard, ‘Actualité et avenir du corps préfectoral’, Revue française d’administration publique, no. 96, octobre-décembre 2000, pp. 519–530. Interestingly, this description is reminiscent of the description of the role of a bishop of the Roman Catholic Church, and there are probably longer-term historical associations between Catholicism and French public administration. 14 Bernard, in an attack of historical amnesia, conveniently forgets the commissaires of Vichy! 15 According to Bernard, the 1982 decentralization laws were merely the culmination of this long historical process, a proposition which is highly debatable. 16 C. Grémion, ‘Les paradoxes du corps préfectoral’, Revue française d’administration publique, no. 96, octobre-décembre 2000, pp. 555–564, 17 Ibid. 18 The concept of ‘network governance’ has been developed in recent years as a way of capturing the reality of contemporary ‘governance’, marked by complexity, diversity and non-hierarchical relationships among the actors, including governmental institutions and officials. A good treatment of the idea may be found in the following works: B. Kohler-Koch (ed.), Linking EU and National Governance (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003); J. Loughlin, ‘The “Transformation” of Governance: New Directions in Policy and Politics’, Australian Journal of Politics & History, Vol. 50, n. 1, 2004, pp. 8–22. 19 Loi du 2 mars 1982, art. 34 and the two Décrets du 1982 relatifs aux pouvoirs du préfet. 20 P. Contet, ‘Les préfets face aux juges: l’émergence d’une nouvelle regulation du pouvoir local’, Revue française d’administration publique, no. 96, octobre–décembre 2000, pp. 577–587. 21 The most dramatic instance in recent years is the ‘Affaire Bonnet’ in Corsica. In 1998, the Prefect of Corsica, Claude Erignac, was assassinated by Corsican nationalists in full daylight in Ajaccio, an event which convulsed France, as it was a direct attack on the authority and legitimacy of the French state. In response, the French government sent a hard-line prefect called Bernard Bonnet to replace Erignac and with the orders to re-impose ‘republican discipline’ in Corsica and to find the assassins. Bonnet interpreted his brief to impose

228 Notes

22 23

24 25 26 27 28 29

30 31 32

33

34

35 36 37 38 39 40

discipline in a very broad sense and ended up ordering the local gendarmes to burn down an illegal beach restaurant (called a paillotte) called ‘Chez Francis’, during the night of 19th April 1999. As a result Bonnet found himself behind bars. Contet, op. cit., p. 577. The role of judges in France is quite different from that of the Anglo-Saxon tradition in that judges may also carry out investigations, which, in Anglo-Saxon countries, would be undertaken by the police. But the reputation of French judges suffered a blow with fiascos such as the botched paedophile case in northern France, known as the Outreau Affair, when several members of families where wrongly convicted because of the incompetent investigation by judges. Le Figaro, 26.12.2005. Despite the change in nomenclature of the person holding the office, his headquarters continued to be called the préfecture. Ibid., p. 559. P-E. Bisch, ‘La modernisation de l’action préfectorale’, Revue française d’administration publique, no. 96, octobre–décembre 2000, pp. 565–569. Ibid. Ibid. Cabinet du Préfet, Rapport des activités de service 2004, http://www.meurtheet-moselle.pref.gouv.fr/administration/etat/servicesEtat/SE_DOCUMENTS/ 050620RA2004_01PRFpref.pdf See Chapter 4 above on the region. See Chapter 3 above on the municipality. D. Clark, ‘The Modernization of the French Civil Service: Crisis, Continuity and Change’, Public Administration, Vol. 76, Spring 1988, p. 101. See also E. Négrier, ‘The Changing Role of French Local Government’, West European Politics, vol. 22, no. 4, October 1999, pp. 120–140. ‘… la structure fondamentale des rapports entre l’Etat et les collectivités territoriales a radicalement changé [my emphasis]’, in G. Marcou, op. cit., p. 29. See also A. Cole, ‘The Service Public under stress’, West European Politics, vol. 22, no. 4, October 1999, pp. 166–184. In the department of Pas-de-Calais, for example, the prefect remains during the meetings of the council as he did before 1982 while in the other French departments; he is present only at the beginning of the meeting and then leaves, which is symbolic of the handing over of executive authority to the president of the council. See P. Loquet, ‘Un préfet au conseil général: une situation anachronique ou un exemple à suivre? ‘, Revue française d’administration publique, no. 96, octobre-décembre 2000, pp. 571–576. J.-B. Albertini, Réforme administrative et Réforme de l’Etat en France: Thèmes et variations de l’esprit de réforme de 1815 à nos jours (Paris: Economica: 2000). See G. Marcou, op. cit., p. 2. See P. Bezes, ‘Déconstruire la «réforme de l’Etat’, Pouvoirs locaux, no. 55, IV, 2002, pp. 16–23. P. Muller (ed.), L’Administration française: est-elle en crise? (Paris: L’Harmattan, 1992). For a summary of these transformations, see J. Loughlin, op. cit., supra, 2004. The énarques, as the graduates of this grande école are called, occupy the most senior positions of the French civil service and prefectoral corps. Their intellectual formation is a generalist one but they are trained as administrators unlike the generalists of the upper ranks of the British civil service who generally have backgrounds in the classics or their German counterparts, the majority of whom

Notes 229

41

42 43

44 45

46

47 48

49 50

51

52 53 54

are trained as public lawyers. See E. Page and V. Wright (eds), Bureaucratic élites in Western European states (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999). American public administration was also in full expansion and there were attempts to draw on management techniques developed in large companies such as General Motors in order to improve public management. This was to become rational public management and the work of H. Simon such as his Models of Man: Social and Rational (New York: John Wiley and Sons, Inc., 1957), was enormously influential in developing this approach. See M. Carley, Rational techniques in policy analysis (London: Heinemann Educational, 1980) for a survey of these techniques. For a analysis of the state paradigms in place during the period of the Trente Glorieuses and the subsequent shifts, see J. Loughlin, ‘The ‘Transformation’ of Governance: New Directions in Policy and Politics’. Australian Journal of Politics and History, Vol. 50, No. 1, March 2004, pp. 8–22. See D. Hanley and A. P. Kerr (eds), May ’68: coming of age (Basingstoke, Macmillan: 1989). Loi du 5 janvier 1973 instituant le Médiateur de la République. Article 1 states that: ‘Un Médiateur de la République, autorité indépendante, reçoit, dans les conditions fixées par la présente loi, les réclamations concernant, dans leurs relations avec les administrés, le fonctionnement des administrations de l’Etat, des collectivités publiques territoriales, des établissements publics et de tout autre organisme investi d’une mission de service public. Dans la limite de ses attributions, il ne reçoit d’instruction d’aucune autre autorité’ (‘The Médiateur de la République, an independent authority, within the conditions established by this law, complaints about the relations with the public of the state’s civil service, the local authorities and any other public agency. Within the limits of the tasks accorded to him, he is not bound by any other authority’). Loi du 3 janvier 1975 sur l’informatique, les fichiers et les libertés; loi du 17 juillet sur la liberté d’accès aux documents administratifs; loi du 11 juillet 1979 sur la motivation des administratifs. Giscard was mercilessly lampooned by satirical magazines such as Le Canard Enchainé because of what they regarded as his monarchical style of government. Among other factors were Giscard’s monarchical style and allegations of corruption and sleaze. For example, his acceptance of gifts of diamonds and hunting trips from the African dictator Bokassa, self-proclaimed Emperor of the Central African Empire in turn for French military and political support. All of this was duly noted and publicized by the French left-wing press. J.-B. Albertini, op. cit., p. 80. In October 2005, national administrators comprised 51 per cent, territorial administrators 30 per cent and hospital administrators 19 per cent of the total numbers working in public administration. Loi du 13 juillet 1983, relative aux droits et obligations des fonctionnaires; loi du 26 janvier 1984, portant dispositions statutaires relatives aux fonctionnaires territoriaux. J. Bourdon, ‘La fonction publique territoriale’, Collectivités locales en France (Paris: La Documentation Française, 1996). Ibid. Experts in public management, consultants involved in the circles de qualité set up by the government as a way of improving public management, senior civil servants interested in public sector reform who formed the association Services publics. See. J. Bourdon, op. cit, p. 18.

230 Notes 55 A. Cole and G. Jones, ‘Reshaping the State: Administrative Reform and New Public Management in France’, Governance: An International Journal of Policy, Administration and Institutions, Vol. 18, no. 4, October 2005, pp. 567–588. 56 These were developed between 1986 and 1988 by the Ministère de la Fonction Publique during the premiership of Michel Rocard. 57 Quoted in Albertini, op. cit., p. 85. 58 P. Bezes, op. cit., p. 18. 59 It is true that this ‘culturalist’ approach was also part of the Thatcherite reforms, particularly the Rayner Scrutinies but Mrs Thatcher also applied the axe more brutally than M. Rocard. 60 Albertini, op. cit., p. 87. 61 Bezes, ibid. 62 Loi 92–125 du 6 février 1992 relative à l’administration territoriale de la République. 63 Le décret 92–604 du 1er juillet 1992 portant Charte de la déconcentration. 64 The names of these committees illustrate the themes they developed: the Committee on ‘Efficacité de l’Etat’ (1988, chaired by François de Closets), the Committee on ‘Etat, administration et services publics de l’an 2000’ (1992, chaired by Christian Blanc), the Committee on ‘Les responsabilités et l’organisation de l’Etat’ (1993–1994, chaired by Jean Picq), cited in Bezes, op. cit., p. 19. 65 La loi constitutionnelle n° 2003–276 du 28 mars 2003 relative à l’organisation décentralisée de la République. Chapter 3 above gives an overview of the changes involved. 66 Loi organique n°2003–704 relative à l’expérimentation par les collectivités territoriales. Experiments must have a general interest and have a maximum time period of five years, renewable for another three years. An evaluation report is made to parliament who then decides whether to abandon the reform, prolong it or apply it more widely. 67 Loi organique n° 2003–705 relative au référendum local. 68 Loi organique du 29 juillet 2004 relative à l’autonomie financière des collectivités territoriales. Finances are dealt with in greater detail in the following chapter. 69 Loi 13 août 2004 relative aux libertés et responsabilités locales. 70 Ministère de l’Intérieur, Les agents des collectivités locales (Paris: Direction générale des Collectivités locales, 2001). 71 Ibid., p. 78. 72 J. Courtial, Les Institutions de la Fonction publique territorial (Rapport au Ministre de la Fonction publique, de la Réforme de l’Etat et de l’Aménagement du Territoire, Juin 2003). 73 O. Nay, ‘Négocier le partenariat: jeux et conflits dans la mise en oeuvre de la politique communautaire en France’, Revue française de Science politique, vol. 51, no. 3, juin 2001, pp. 459–481.

8 Paying For It All 1 The Charter is available on-line: http://conventions.coe.int/Treaty/EN/Treaties/ Html/122.htm. 2 Of the 46 member states of the Council of Europe, only the three micro states, San Marino, Andorra and Monaco have not signed the Charter since they are really the size of local governments themselves. Among the rest all but France has signed and ratified it. The Charter is a treaty-like document and by signing

Notes 231

3

4

5

6

7

8 9 10

11 12 13 14

and ratifying it, a member state is expected to apply it in a way adapted to its own system of government, whether this is federal, unitary or regionalized. Article 2–2 states that ‘Les collectivités territoriales bénéficient de ressources dont elles peuvent disposer librement dans les conditions fixées par la loi. Elles peuvent recevoir tout ou partie du produit des impositions de toutes natures. La loi peut les autoriser à en fixer l’assiette et le taux dans les limites qu’elle détermine. Les recettes fiscales et les autres ressources propres des collectivités territoriales représentent, pour chaque catégorie de collectivités, une part déterminante de l’ensemble de leurs ressources. La loi organique fixe les conditions dans lesquelles cette règle est mise en oeuvre. Tout transfert de compétences entre l’État et les collectivités territoriales s’accompagne de l’attribution de ressources équivalentes à celles qui étaient consacrées à leur exercice. Toute création ou extension de compétences ayant pour conséquence d’augmenter les dépenses des collectivités territoriales est accompagnée de ressources déterminées par la loi. La loi prévoit des dispositifs de péréquation destinés à favoriser l’égalité entre les collectivités territoriales’. For a survey of the question, see J. Loughlin and S. Martin, International Lessons on Balance of Funding Issues (Whitehall: Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, Nov. 2003), pp. 79 available at http://www.local.odpm.gov.uk/finance/balance/ interles.pdf J. Loughlin, A. Lidstrom and C. Hudson), ‘The Politics of Local Taxation in Sweden: Reform and Continuity’, Local Government Studies, Vol. 31, no. 3, 2005, pp. 334–368. For the Spanish case, see J. Loughlin and S. Lux, Subnational Finances in Spain: Lessons for the UK? (Whitehall: Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, April 2004). available at http://www.local.odpm.gov.uk/finance/balance/bof22.pdf An excellent survey of local finances in France, to which this chapter is indebted, may be found in M. Bouvier, Les Finances Locales, 8ième edition (Paris: Librairie Générale de Droit, 2002). The following data are taken from Dexia-Crédit Local, Finances locales en France (Paris: Dexia-Crédit Local, février 2006), p. 1. Dexia, Local Finance in the fifteen countries of the European Union (Paris: Dexia Editions, 2002), p. 34. Of course, local authorities will always complain that these are insufficient and the central government has to strike a balance between the different expenditures of which subnational government is just one part. See J. Loughlin and S. Martin, op. cit., (2003) for a survey of these trends. Which could be translated as ‘the four old ladies’ but, in fact, this is an abbreviated form of ‘les quatre vieilles taxes’! Article 38 of the 1958 Constitution. The four taxes created during the Revolution (the last one in 1798) were not exactly the same as those in existence today. These were: (i) the landed property tax (la taxe foncière); (ii) the moveable property tax (la taxe mobilière); (iii) the tax on business and commercial activity (la taxe des patentes) and (iv) doors and windows tax (la taxe sur les portes et les fenêtres) created in 1798. This last tax, clearly aimed at the owners of large houses and chateaux was suppressed in 1926. During the 19th the landed property tax was divided into two separate taxes, one on built-up property (la propriété bâtie) and the other on unbuilt property (la propriété non bâtie).

232 Notes 15 The Physiocrats were a school of economic thinkers which originated in France in the 18th century who believed that agriculture was the source of wealth and that industrial activity was simply the transformation of the surplus generated by agricultural production. They despised cities and glorified the countryside. 16 This was different from the ideas of both Adam Smith and Marx who thought that value was created by labour rather than land. 17 Several parliamentary reports in the 1930s underlined these features: Pietri (1931), Auriol (1936), Bonnet (1937), Blum (1938) and Marchandeau (1938). See M. Bouvier, op. cit., p. 38. 18 Ordonnance du 7 janvier 1959 19 Further reforms took place with laws passed in December 1973, July 1974 and July 1975 (which abolished the contribution des patentes and replaced it with the taxe professionnelle. 20 Dexia, op. cit., (2002), p. 135. 21 A valuation was provided for in a law of 30 July 1990 while the previous valuation was carried out in … 1970 for land with property and 1961 for land without property. Although the preliminary valuation for the 1990 law was accomplished by 1992, the results have still not been incorporated in the determination of the local tax bases. French Senate Report: http://senat.fr/commission/ fin/collectif_2004/39_40nonies/39_40nonies4.html. 22 A. Delcamp and M-J. Tulard, ‘France: une decentralisation à la recherche d’un second souffle’, in A. Delcamp and J. Loughlin (eds), La décentralisation dans les Etats de l’Union européenne (Paris: La Documentation Française, 2003), p. 172. 23 Bouvier, op. cit., p. 53. 24 In the United Kingdom, this was also a local tax until Mrs Thatcher’s government nationalized it in the 1980s and it is also a national tax in Sweden. 25 Loi organique relative aux lois de finances n° 2001–692 du 1er août 2001. 26 A. Delcamp and J.-M. Tulard, op. cit., p. 173. 27 This is a strong argument made by M. Bouvier, op. cit., pp. 58–59. 28 Ibid. 29 In the German case, equalization is actually guaranteed by the Basic Law of 1949 and the current attempts at reforming German federalism are struggling to reconcile this constitutional imperative with the economic and fiscal realities which have followed German unification bringing in the new highly impoverished Länder. In Sweden, too, possibly the world’s oldest social-democratic Welfare State is trying to incorporate new, neo-liberal approaches bringing some diversity to the local government system and its relations to the central government, See J. Loughlin, A. Lidstrom and C. Hudson, op. cit., (2005). 30 The following description is largely drawn from M. Bouvier, op. cit., pp. 61–67. 31 M. Bouvier, op. cit., p. 87. 32 Dexia, op. cit., (2002), p. 138. 33 See J. Loughlin and S. Martin, op. cit., (2003). 34 M. Bouvier, op. cit., p. 87. 35 A. Delcamp and J.-M. Tulard, op. cit., p. 175. 36 Dexia, op. cit., p. 138. 37 See the website at http://www.dgcl.interieur.gouv.fr/comites_organismes/ cfl/CFL.html. 38 J. Loughlin, ‘The “Transformation” of Governance: New Directions in Policy and Politics’. Australian Journal of Politics and History, vol. 50, no. 1, March 2004, pp. 8–22. See also M. Bouvier, op. cit., p. 102.

Notes 233 39 Rappport de la Commission de développement des responsabilités locales (Paris: La Documentation Française, 1976). 40 7 janvier 1983 modified by the laws of 29 décembre 1983, 20 décembre 1985, 5 janvier 1988, and the finance laws of 1996. 41 Op. cit., p. 114. 42 E. Vital-Durand, Les collectivités territoriales en France, 4ième édition (Paris: Hachette Supérieur, 2000). 43 The following draws on M. Bouvier, op. cit., pp. 116ff. 44 See R. Hertzog, ‘Le ménage à trois: État, collectivités locales et sécurité sociale, ou pourquoi l’autonomie fiscale des collectivités locales ne progressera pas’, Annuaire des Collectivités locales 2002 (Paris: CNRS Editions, 2002), pp. 61–74; G. Gilbert, ‘Le partage macroéconomique du deficit et de la dette et l’investissement des collectivités locales’, Annuaire des Collectivités locales 2002 (Paris: CNRS Editions, 2002), pp. 75–96. 45 Taken from the EU Regional Policy website: http://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/ country/prordn/search.cfm?gv_pay=FR&gv_reg=ALL&gv_obj=ALL&gv_the=ALL &LAN=EN 46 An excellent treatment of the way in which ‘Europe’ has affected French public management, especially in rural regions, may be found in A. Smith, L’Europe politique au miroir du local: les fonds structurels et les zones rurales en France, en Espagne et au Royaume-Uni (Paris: l’Harmattan, 1996).

Conclusions 1 Classic examples are V. Wright, The government and politics of France, 3rd ed. (London: Unwin Hyman, 1989) and J. Hayward, Governing France: the one and indivisible republic, 2nd ed. (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1983). 2 The Council has three main institutions: the Committee of Ministers, the Parliamentary Assembly and the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of Europe (CLRAE). The CLRAE is, in turn, composed of a regional chamber, representing regions, and a local authorities chamber. 3 See J. Loughlin and B. G. Peters, ‘State Traditions, Administrative Reform and Regionalization’, in M. Keating and J. Loughlin (eds), The Political Economy of Regionalism (London: Frank Cass, 1997), pp. 41–62.

Index Page numbers in italics refer to maps and tables. administration centralization 45 civil service 9, 71–72, 173 decentralization 11–14 divisions 24 see also territorial administration agriculture 53–54, 200 Albertini, Jean-Benoît 172–173 Albigensians 29–30 Alliès, Paul 147, 148 autogestion 59, 60–62 Basque Country 61, 62, 65, 124–125, 125, 126 Bernard, Paul 165, 166 Bisch, Pierre-Etienne 168 Bonnet, Christian 112–113 borrowing 197–199 Bouvier, Michel 197 Braudel, Fernand 25, 46, 47, 110 Briand, Aristide 117–118 Brissot, Jacques-Pierre 38 Brittany/Breton 54, 62 CELIB 50, 51, 55, 120 decentralization reforms 123–124, 125, 132–133 historic perspective 40, 47, 51, 60, 118 pays 102–103 business taxes 189, 193–194 capitalism see economics Cathars 29–30 Catholicism and Enlightenment philosophers 31–32 and monarchy 29–30, 39 and Reformation (16th century) 30–31 and Regionalism 41, 42, 54 CELIB (Comité d’Etudes et de Liaison des Intérêts Bretons) 50, 51, 55, 120

central government grants 194–197 centralization monarchy 25–27 opponents of 37–43 political and administrative 45 Chaban-Delmas, Jacques 153, 171 Chaptal, Jean-Antoine 163 Charles-Brun, Jean 41 Charter of Administrative Decentralization 175 Charter du Pays 101–102 Chastel Arnaud 92 Chevènement, Jean-Pierre 63–64, 124 Chevènement Laws (1999–2000) 74, 96, 99 Chirac, Jacques 73, 74, 76, 110, 145, 146, 155, 158, 167 ‘choice’ model and ‘principal-agent’ model 14–15, 16, 17, 18, 197 Christian Democrats 4–5, 49, 102–103, 141, 144 citizen participation 89, 105–107, 129 citizenship 34, 35, 51, 66–67 civil service 9, 71–72, 173 CNFPT (Centre national de la function publique territoriale) 177 CODERs (Commission de Dévelopment Économique et Régional) 121–122, 166 Cole, A. 78–79 collectivé territoriale 59, 69, 71, 89, 122 regional upgrading to 126–128 Combes, Emile 42, 45 Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) 53, 200 communautés d’agglomération (CAs) 96, 97, 99, 100–101, 104–105 communautés de commune (CCs) 94, 95–96, 99, 104–105 communautés de villes (CVs) 94, 95, 96 communes see municipalities (communes) 234

Index 235 Communist Party 49, 50, 63–64, 124, 146, 154–155 Constitutional changes 203–204 Constitutional Court 68, 71, 76–77, 125–126 Corsica CPER 133 during Trente Glorieuses 118, 119, 120 historic perspective 40, 51, 55, 60 special statute 61, 62, 65, 70, 125–126 CPER (Contrat de Plan Etat-Région) 102, 105, 128–132, 133 Crozier, M. 64, 67, 164, 169, 171 CSFPT (Conseil supérieur de la function publique territoriale) 177 cultural changes 58, 66 cultural dimensions 9, 10–11 cumul des mandats 72, 107, 117, 144–145 De Gaulle, Charles 25, 48, 49, 50, 52, 55, 58–59, 61, 125, 146, 147, 166, 171 referendum (1969) 59, 122, 123, 132, 143 De Maistre, Joseph 39 Debré, Michel 144, 146, 170 decentralization programme (1982–2006) administrative aspects 172–174, 176–177 departments 113–114 first phase 65–72 grants 195 and ‘reform of the state’ 170–176 regions 123–126 second phase (Acte II) 72–77, 176–177 Defferre, Gaston 62, 63, 65, 125, 154–155 Delors, Jacques 205–206 democracy election trends and 152–153 historic 36, 37 and local taxation 190–192 and Welfare state 4–7 departments/departmental councils 111–117 electoral system 149–150, 156–160

fiscal equalization 192–193 functioning 116–117 historic 36, 37, 110, 111 planning 168–169 post-1982 decentralization reforms 113–114 president 69, 113–114, 117, 128 responsibilities 114–116 ear-marked grants 196 Ecole Nationale d’Administration (ENA) 52, 119, 165, 170, 171, 203 Ecole Polytechnique 52, 119, 171, 203 economics 3–4 First World War 48 post-Second World War 48–52 see also Trente Glorieuses (1945–1975) regional development 120, 121–122, 128 CPER 102, 105, 128–132, 133 and social services reform 172–174 Welfare state 5, 7–8 see also finance(s) education 71, 116 grants 195 historic 42, 119 minority languages 125, 126 elections 146–152 and democracy 152–153 departmental 116, 117 municipal 89, 147–149, 153–156 regional 126, 150–152, 156–160 England and France, historic relationship 26, 27, 28, 32, 33 see also United Kingdom (UK) Enlightenment (18th century) philosophers 31–32, 35 EPCIs (Etablissement Public de Coopération Intercommunal) 96–99, 100–101 EPR (établissements publics régionaux) 59–60, 69, 112, 113, 122–123 equity ‘equality of levels’ 17–18 fiscal equalization 192–194 Welfare state principle 51–52 European Charter for Local SelfGovernment 12, 18, 182, 206

236 Index European Commission 75, 77, 78, 205–206 European countries, comparative perspective 2, 11–19 passim family structures 47 local government areas 89, 92, 93 public expenditure 182–183 reforms 58 taxation 183, 190–192 Welfare regimes 51–52 European federalism 4–5, 49–50, 50–51 European funds 200–201 European immigrants 57 European Parliament 145, 149, 152, 153 European Union 205–207 Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) 53, 200 decentralization initiatives 12–13, 15, 16–17, 19–20, 77–78 and regions 130–132 family structures 46–47 family values 60 federalism 38, 43 European 4–5, 49–50, 50–51 finance(s) changing patterns of relations 16–17 departments 114 fiscal equalization 192–194 historic perspective 27, 28, 31 income sources 70, 187–201 local, as part of general public expenditure 183–187 First World War 42–43, 48 France see specific institutions/regions/ topics French Revolution 2–3 and Enlightenment philosophers 31–32 and monarchy 33, 35–36, 37–38, 39 and Napoleonic Empire 33–37 ‘functional regionalism’ and ‘political regionalism’ (1960s) 119–121 Gallicanism 31 Gaullism/Gaullists 49, 50, 63, 141 geographic diversity of France 46 George, Susan 5, 6, 7 Germany 34, 35, 48, 49 Girondins 37–38, 39 neo-Girondins 72

Giscard d’Estaing, Valéry 60, 61, 63, 66, 76, 112, 123, 171–172, 205 ‘Golden Age’ see Trente Glorieuses (1945–1975) grants, central government 194–197 Gravier, Jean-François 40, 55, 110, 119–120 Grémion, Catherine 166, 167–168 Guichard Report (1976) 112 hierarchy to ‘equality of levels’ 17–18 historic perspective Enlightenment philosophers 31–32 Napoleonic prefecture system 37–43 ‘quatre vieilles’ 188–189 Reformation 30–31 see also Catholicism; French Revolution; monarchy immigration 56–58, 105–106 institutional changes 203–205 see also specific institutions investment grants 196 Jacobins/Jacobinism 37–38, 42, 66–67, 72, 120 ‘pluralist Jacobinism’ 125 see also leftist/socialist perspectives Jospin, Lionel 74, 75, 76, 145, 151, 155, 157, 158 La Bras, H. and Todd, E. 46–47 Languedoc-Roussillon 40, 54, 133 leftist/socialist perspectives 63–64 Marxism 6, 58, 60, 123 May 1968 legacy 58, 66 regionalism 60–62, 124–126 and right-wing perspectives 65–66, 117, 121, 140–141 Trente Glorieuses (1945–1975) 60–62 see also elections; Jacobins/Jacobinism; neo-liberalism; specific parties legal system, historic 27, 28 legislation Chevènement Laws (1999–2000) 74, 96, 99 and contractual process 129 EPR 122 Law on Local Democracy (2002) 106 municipalities 88–89, 93, 94–95 national-local relations 71–72

Index 237 Pasqua law (1995) 73–74, 99–100, 101 Solidarity and Urban Renewal Law (2000) 106 ‘state modernization’ 174–175 Voynet Law (1999–2000) 74, 99, 100, 104 see also decentralization programme (1982–2006) local taxes 188–190 and democracy 190–192 local-national relations see national-local relations Louis XIII 28, 29 Louis XIV 29, 31, 33, 38 Maastricht Treaty (1992) 12, 16–17, 19, 198, 206 Mansholt Plan 53–54 Marshall Aid 49 Marshall, T.H. 4, 51 Marxist socialism 6, 58, 60, 123 Masson, Jean-Louis 149–150 Mauroy, Pierre 63, 124, 147 Mauroy Report (2000) 75–76 May 1968 legacy 58, 66 mayors 89–91, 117, 153 Mendras, H. 53 meso level see departments/ departmental councils; regions migration immigration 56–58, 105–106 urban-rural 53–54, 55–56, 84–87 millefeurille institutional français 64, 95, 113, 180 Milward, Alan 5, 50 minority languages 61, 62, 125–126 Mitterand, François 64, 65, 67, 68, 110, 113, 146, 172, 206 110 Proposals 61, 125–126 monarchy and nobility and Catholic faith 29–30 centralized 25–27 and Enlightenment philosophers 31–32 and French Revolution 33, 35–36, 37–38, 39 Paris-based expansion of 27–29 Monnet, Jean 49, 50, 119 Montesquieu 32, 41

municipalities (communes) 83–108 changing patterns of settlement 83–88 councils 89, 91 elections 89, 147–149, 153–156 encouraging intercommunal co-operation 93–99 historic 37, 75 institutions 89 mayors 89–91, 117, 153 neighbourhood councils 105–107 pays 73–74, 99–105 reducing number of 91–105 responsibilities 90, 91 structure and functions 88–91 ‘Napoleonic’ model of state 2 see also prefecture system nation, historic concept of 33–34 nation-state historic concept of 34–35 and nationalism 3–4, 34 and Welfare state 2–10, 51 see also State National Assembly 150, 153, 171 and Senate 142, 143, 144, 145 national equalization funds 193–194 National Front (Le Pen) 156, 157, 158 national-local relations grants 197 legislation 71–72 politics 142–152 power transfer 70–71 Welfare state 7 nationalizations 52 neighbourhood councils 105–107 neo-liberalism 5–7, 8–10, 11, 15 and socialism 63, 68, 205–206 new ideas, ‘reception’ of 207 New Left see neo-liberalism New Public Management (NPM) 11, 173–174, 206 nobility see monarchy and nobility notables 64, 67, 73, 116, 144, 145–146, 164 operating grants

195–196

Paris and provinces 27–29, 47–48 see also urban areas partnership 129

238 Index Pasqua law (1995) 73–74, 99–100, 101 pays 73–74, 99–105 planning 73–74, 94 CPER, state-region contracts 102, 105, 128–132, 133 PASED 168–169 Le Plan National 50–51, 119, 128 Regional Action Plan 50–51, 58–59 Pleven, R. 49, 50 ‘pluralist Jacobinism’ 125 political centralization 45 political decentralization 11–14 political parties and local politics 145–146 see also elections; specific ideologies/ parties/leaders ‘political regionalism’ and ‘functional regionalism’ (1960s) 119–121 Pompidou, George 55, 59, 112, 122, 171 population see migration; socioeconomic issues prefecture system historic perspective 37–43 myths and reality 162–166 prefect roles 116, 121–123 post-1982 68–69, 113–114, 128, 166–169 presidents, departmental and regional 69, 113–114, 117, 128 ‘principal-agent’ model 7, 51 and ‘choice’ model 14–15, 16, 17, 18, 197 property, income derived from 189–190, 193, 199 proportional representation 147, 150, 151–152, 157–158 Proudhon, Pierre-Joseph 41–42 public opinion 110–111, 133–134 ‘quatre vieilles’

188–189

Raffarin, Jean-Pierre 76, 158, 176 Reactionaries 39 Reformation (16th century) 30–31 Regional Action Plan 50–51, 58–59 regionalism during Trente Glorieuses (1945–1975) 58–60, 119 and European federalism 50–51

‘functional regionalism’ to ‘political regionalism’ (1960s) 119–121 and socialist left 60–62, 124–126 Regionalists 118–119, 123–124 historic 39–43 regions 110, 117–134 1960s and 1970s 121–123 1982 decentralization reforms 123–126 assymetry 132–133 capitals 82, 109 councils 69 CPER, planning contracts between state and 102, 105, 128–132, 133 development coalitions 120 elections 126, 150–152, 156–160 European Union dimension 130–132 funds 194 historic 117–118 pays 102–105 public opinion 110–111, 133–134 responsibilities 127 upgrading to collectivé territoriale 126–128 Regourd, Serge 93–94, 95 Rhône-Alpes 132–133 Richelieu, Cardinal 28–29, 31 right- and left-wing perspectives 5–6, 65–66, 117, 121, 140–141 see also neo-liberalism Rocard, M. 60–61, 124, 128, 149, 173–174, 175 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques 32, 33–34, 38 Schuman, R. 49, 50 Second World War 43 reconstruction following 48–52 Senate 59, 112–113, 122, 142–143 and National Assembly 142, 143, 144, 145 two types of senators 142 services, fees for 199–200 social contract 32, 33–34 social diversity of France 46–48 social security 114 social services 172–174 social values 60 Socialist Party (PS) 124–125, 154–155

Index 239 socialist perspectives see leftist/socialist perspectives socio-economic issues 100, 101–102, 107, 108 post-1945 changes 53–56, 75, 84, 117 souverainistes 64 Soviet Union 48–49, 50, 52–53 State post-war concept of 52 reconfiguration 10–18, 19–20 reform 170–176 see also nation-state subsidiarity 129, 174–175 sustainable development 101–2, 104 syndicats formula for intercommunal co-operation 93–94, 95 taxation see local taxes territorial administration 177–180 contradictions 180 legislation 71–72 and ‘reform of the state’ 170–176 see also administration territorial governance 205–207 ‘Third Way’ politics 9–10 Tilly, C. 27 Todd, E. 46–47 transport 114–116 Trente Glorieuses (1945–1975) 52–62 immigration 56–58 regionalism 60–62, 119

territorial reforms during 170–171

58–60,

UMP (Union pour un Mouvement Populaire) 141, 158–159 United Kingdom (UK) 7, 8, 14, 16, 18, 63, 64, 174 see also England United States (US) 8, 16, 48–49, 52–53, 63, 206 urban areas expansion 84–88 migration into 53–54, 55–56, 84–87 municipalities 94 neighbourhood councils 105–107 Voltaire 32 Voynet Law (1999–2000) 104

74, 99, 100,

Welfare state and democracy 4–7 fiscal equalization 192–193 multiple crises of 7–10 nation-state and its culmination in 2–10, 51 New Left and 6–7, 58 territorial politics of 7 Worms, Jean-Pierre 116, 164 Ziller, Jacques

92, 93