An important draft legislation was voted yesterday by the national assembly to introduce some historical changes in the structure and competencies of French local authorities. It is one of Mr Sarkozy's flagship initiatives, and has been quite laborious in getting through Parliament. It still needs to go back to the Senate for final approval or further legislative work. In a country renowned for an efficient centralised system, how will local democracy be improved by this reform? Will it help tackle the regulatory quality challenges? Answers are of course not ready, but we can take a look at the innovations, as they currently stand:
- reduction, nearly by half, of locally elected officials: 3500 conseillers territoriaux, acting at both département and region level, replacing two corps totalling 6000 councilors, a move welcomed by taxpayers;
- the possibility for départements and regions to amalgamate, by no means a panacea for those who consider that there are too many small non viable regions; the purpose of the change is to sooner or later combine the two levels, where it would be more efficient;
- a count-down towards a clarification of the competencies of regions and départements with 2014 as the target for clearing any misunderstandings;
- various technical measures to improve the management of larger cities, including a new type of authority, "metropolis", for conurbations beyond 450,000 inhabitants, that could be granted a wide range of powers beyond those of a group of communes (including transfers from the département, the region and even central government).
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