Decentralisation and regulatory governance in France

 The French model of public governance is generally viewed as based on the principle of unity of the territory and centralization of the normative power. This slightly obscures the amount of devolution to regional and local entities, which has been actively pursued for over 200 years under the concept of “décentralization”. This blog has reported the discussion of the most recent bill reforming the distribution of competences between the various levels of government.

Fuelling this interesting debate, the “institut de la décentralisation (a think tank on public action at subnational level) published last week a report, unfortunately not on-line, entitled “public governance: consequences of a regional legislative power on public policies.”

The theme will be discussed in an evening seminar on 15 November, and the current issue of “Pouvoirs Locaux”  includes a very thorough dossier on the a desirable “territorial differentiation”  and its legal impact.