Government or governance? The case of the French local political system

West European Politics

Volumn 21, Issue 3, 1998, Pages 146-169

  Michel, Herve ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

DECENTRALISATION; GOVERNANCE APPROACH; LOCAL GOVERNMENT; POLITICAL SYSTEM;

FRANCE;

EID: 0031666734     PISSN: 01402382     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/01402389808425261     Document Type: Article

References (43)

1. M. Abélés, Jours Tranquilles en 1989: Ethnologie Politique d'un Département Français (Paris: O.Jacob 1989).
2. D. Lorrain, 'France, le Changement Silencieux', in D. Lorrain and G. Stocker (eds.) La Privitisation des Services Urbains en Europe (Documentation Française 1995).
3. P. Le Gales, 'Du Gouvernement des Villes àla Gouvemance Urbaine', Revue Française de Science Politique 1 (April 1995).
4. R. Balme, 'La Région Française Comme Espace d'Action Publique'. Paper given at the international conference, Les régions en Europe, Rennes, 4-6 Oct. 1995.
5. H. Michel, Intercommunalités et Gouvernements Locaux, (Paris: l'Harmattan 1998). This article develops the theoretical elements of this empirical research.
6. P. Grémion, Le pouvoir périphérique (Paris: Seuil 1976).
7. The example of the French western départements demonstrate this. On the other hand, the experience of the Picardie and Rhône-Alpes areas show that some dynamic regional councils can be more influential at the early stage of the intercommunal renewal.
8. The example of the département of Ille-et-Vilaine can illustrate this kind of strategy. Integrated into its rural plan of development, the intercommunal policy of the departmental council of Ille-et-Vilaine is based on devices promoting the creation of intercommunal trading estates near the motorways, offering financial incentives to sustain the creation and operation of the intercommunal structures for local development, and the creation of a new service (SIDEL) in order to implement this policy. The departmental council is also trying to change the communal individualistic mentality of the local representatives. To this end, between 1989 and 1992, it instituted a departmental plan of development which insists on the necessity of improving rural co-operation by touristic and residential intercommunal policies. This departmental strategy has led first to the multiplication of the syndicats with an economic purpose between 1988 and 1991, and, second, their transformation into communautés de communes from 1992. Following the departmental guidelines, these new intercommunal organisations have opted for residential and touristic functions.
9. For example, the departmental council of Morbihan is chaired by a senator hostile to intercommunal renewal, and because of this, it promoted technical intercommunality. It did not materially sustain co-operation for local development. In addition, it discouraged it by political pressure. Some rural elected representatives have disclosed their attachment to the guidelines of the chairman. During 1992-96, only eight new intercommunal organisations were created. Most rural communes continue to co-operate within their traditional intercommunal structures, the syndicats.
10. The majority of departmental councils deploy this intercommunal strategy.
11. The case of the urban district of Rennes illustrates this strategy perfectly. With the agreement of a small group of local representatives from the centre and the periphery, the mayor of Rennes became the chairman of the district in 1989, in order to modernise the intercommunal structure. Created in 1970 to plan and study the development of the metropolitan area, the district was transformed between 1989-93 into a real intercommunal structure of development. The intercommunal strategic planning was re-triggered. The functions were extended (public transport, refuse collection and disposal, economic development). The territory was enlarged (from 27 communes to 33). However, the first preoccupation of the
12. urban élite has been since then to free the district from the financial dependence on the communes. From 1991, the district has had an autonomous financial power. To fund its policies, it has to levy local taxes. In 1992, its fiscal system was again modified. Based on the taxe professionnelle communautaire, the district is now the main partner of the local companies. It is very much involved in the local development, because the level of its funds depends on the level of the local economic activities.
13. For example, in the département of Mayenne, the chairman wanted in 1996 to organise the merger of the communautés de communes, based on the cantons, into some new intercommunal organisations established on wider socio-economic areas. At the same time, he wanted to reshape the departmental policies according to these new intercommunal organisations. He also wished to transform the method of departmental support to the communes and cantons into an intercommunal and multi-cantonal model. The collective opposition of most of the departmental councillors forced the chairman to give up the project.
14. However, their position can change if they are at the same time regional councillors or chairmen of an intercommunal organisation established on a multi-cantonal basis.
15. Since the 1950s, the state has multiplied devices in order to develop intercommunal cooperation. Between 1955 and 1995, the formula of the multi-purpose syndicat (syndicat à vocation multiple, 1959), the district (1959), the communauté urbaine (1966), the syndicat d'agglomération nouvelle (1970), the syndicat àla carte (1988), thé communautés de communes et de villes (1992), thé pays ( 1995) were created. On the whole, these devices increasingly invite local councillors to create integrated intercommunal structures - i.e, able to levy local taxes, for the management of technical and political functions, on the basis of wide socio-economic territories.
16. P. Durant and J.C Thoenig, 'L'Etat et la Gestion Publique Territoriale1, Revue Française de Science Politique 4 (Aug. 1996) p.621.
17. E. Friedberg, 'II faut Accompagner le Polycentrisme Naissant de la Société Française', Pouvoirs locaux 29 (June 1996) pp.97-100.
18. J.C Thoenig, 'Les Contre-Pouvoirs Locaux: Version 'Douce'et Version 'Dure', les Nouvelles Relations Etat-Collectivités Locales -Colloque de Rennes, April 1990 (La Documentation Française 1991 ) pp. 17-21.
19. Developed by companies such as the 'Lyonnaise des eaux' or the 'compagnie générale des eaux', these strategies of normalisation - 'technisisation' - of the political intercommunal issues have already been illustrated in the field of the local management of water. See D. Lorrain, Gestions urbaines de l'eau (Paris: Economica 1995).
20. P. Le Gales, 'Du Gouvernement des Villes àla Gouveraance Urbaine', Revue Française de Science Politique 1 (April 1995).
21. P. Le Gales, J. Caillosse and P. Loncle-Moriceau, SEML et la Gouvernance Urbaine, Rapport de Synthèse, Programme PIR-Villes (1995) pp.4-5.
22. O. Borraz, 'Le Changement dans le Mode de Gouvernement des Villes", in J-Y. Nevers and S. Biarez, Gouvernement local et politiques urbaines (Grenoble: CERAT 1993).
23. D. Lorrain, 'Gouvernement et Villes', Sociologie du Travail 2 (Feb. 1995) p.123.
24. P. Mocquay asserts the hypothesis of a rural governance. See P. Mocquay, Co-operation intercommunale et société locale, Doctoral thesis (U. of Bordeaux IV 1996) pp.463-6.
25. A. Mabileau, Le Système Local (Paris: Montchretien 1991) pp.37-8.
26. On the contrary, during the same period, sectorial policies (agriculture, health, education, defence, industry) were modernised due to the convergence of administritive and professional leadership. B. Jobert and P. Müller, l'Etat en action, politiques, publiques et corporatismes (Paris: PUF 1987). For a synthesis of this, see P. Müller, Les politiques publiques (ibid. 1990).
27. This capacity for neutralisation of the local political system has been widely demonstrated: Y. Mény, Centralisation et Decentralisation dans le Débat Politique Français (1945-69) ' (LGDJ, 1974); P. Grémion, Le Pouvoir Périphérique (Paris: Seuil 1976); J. Kervasdoué et al., 'La Loi et le Changement Social: un Diagnostic, la Loi du 16 juillet 1971 sur les Fusions et les Regroupements de Communes', Revue française de sociologie 17 (1976). F. Dupuy and J.C Thoenig, Sociologie de l'Administration Française (Paris: Colin 1983).
28. D. Lorrain, 'La Montée en Puissance des Villes', Economie et Humanisme 305 (1989).
29. Idem 'De l'Administration Républicaine au Gouvernement Urbain', Sociologie du Travail 4 (1991).
30. M. Crazier and J.C Thoenig, 'La Régulation des Systèmes Organisés Complexes, le cas du Système de Décision Politico-Administratif Local en France', Revue Française de Sociologie 16 (1975); Dupuy and Thoenig (note 26).
31. A. Mabileau, 'Les Héritiers des Notables', Pouvoirs 49 (1989).
32. F. Gerbaux and P. Müller, 'Les Interventions Economiques Locales', Pouvoirs 60 (1992).
33. Grémion (note 6).
34. J.C. Thoenig, 'La Décentralisation, Dix Ans Après', Pouvoirs 60 (1992).
35. P. Le Gales, 'Villes en Competiton?' in J.Y Nevers and Biarez, Gouvernement Local et Politiques Urbaines (Grenoble: GERAT 1993). P. Le Gales and M. Oberti, 'Les stratégies des Villes, in J.C Némery and S. Wächter, Entre l'Europe et la Décentralisation, les Institutions Territoriales Françaises (Datar: Editions de l'Aube 1993).
36. Grémion (note 6) p.428.
37. The example of Ille-et-Vilaine illustrates this situation. Forming a unified interommunal organisation, thé district of Rennes has started early to plan its development at a departmental scale. This urban strategy destabilised the departmental council which decided from 1986 to counter, by a territorial strategy of resistance, the metropolitan expansion. In Ille-et-Vilaine, there is real competition between the departmental council and the major city to control the local territory. Between 1989 and 1993, the district was completely renewed in terms of its fiscal power, functions and territorial dimension. At the same time, the departmental council used the ATR law to resist the metropolitan expansion. In 1993, 24 of the 26 existing communautés de communes had already been created.
38. The département of Loire-Atlantique can illustrate this situation. Until 1995, the priority of the mayor of Nantes was to federate the communes of its conurbation. He did not try to develop its intercomunal territory; he tried to organise the transformation of the metropolitan multi-purpose syndicat into an integrated intercommunal organisation. Under these conditions, the conurbation of Nantes did not endanger the institutional territorial leadership of the departmental council. The departmental élite was not pushed to contain the urban development by intercommunality. It did not actively encourage intercommunal renewal which intervened progressively. In 1996, only 18 new intercommunal organisations had been created, covering two-thirds of the departmental territory.
39. For example, in Picardie, the regional council and the departmental council of the Oise have successively multiplied their own intercommunal devices in order to rally the rural communes. Finally, the regional council now seems to be the main partner of the local elected representatives. It has an increasing relationship with the 40 intercommunal organisations that extend over the whole regional territory.
40. D. Gaxie, 'Structures et Contradictions de l'Edifice Institutionnel', in idem (ed.) Luttes d'Institutions (Paris: l'Harmattan 1997) pp.4-5.
41. On this subject, refer to the studies of Le Gales, Lorrain, Balme.
42. D. Lorrain and G. Stocker, La Privatisation des Services Urbain en Europe (Documentation Française 1995).
43. A. Faure, 'Des Maires Ruraux Saisis par l'Esprit d'Entreprise', Economie et Humanisme 300 (1988). See also by the same author, 'Pouvoir Local en France: le Management Mayoral à l'Assaut du Clientélisme', Revue Politique et Management Public 3 (1991).