Contenu du sommaire : Les enjeux de la réforme territoriale

Legislation passed since 2013 has yet again revived the process of local government reform. Groupings of local authorities will be reformed, with the creation of 14 metropolitan areas, including Le Grand Paris. In line with the 2010 Act, intercommunalities will become more commonplace, although they will have a much higher minimum population. However, the reform of intermediate levels of government is inconsistent. First the legitimacy of the department councils was renewed in 2013. Then it was announced that they would be abolished, but the creation of bigger regions finally justified maintaining them. The NOTRe Act on the Republic's new territorial organisation allowed them to keep powers that it had been expected would be transferred to the regions. The general clause on departments' and regions' competences was initially abolished by the 2010 Act, then it was reintroduced by the Act of 27 January 2014, and now it been removed again by the Act of 7 August 2015. Ultimately the regionalist thrust of the second wave of reforms has not been kept up. An opportunity to update the French system has thus arisen, in which the key players will be the state (through the prefects) and communes (through the intercommunalities).

Contrary to what might appear to be the case, territorial reforms are not just ad hoc technical procedures for reorganising local and regional authorities and their competences. Over and above the basic institutional and political mechanisms underpinning these procedures, these reforms permit the state to express its vision on the decentralisation and territorialisation of public policies, while highlighting the responsibilities it intends to retain. However the state is extremely vague about this at present, thus exposing recurrent problems regarding its vision on the relationship with the territorial level.

The reform of the state at the territorial level (RéATE) has achieved mixed results since it was implemented six years ago in 2009. The goals of achieving wider interministerial cooperation in the implementation of public policies and improvements in support functions have not been achieved. It is now necessary to redefine the role of the state at territorial level, by directly determining what its task should be and by developing a new relationship with local and regional authorities. Also, if the list of interministerial departmental directorates is maintained, they should be given the resources they require by developing new professional sectors and providing them with a proper operational budget.

Although it is no longer possible to be both a member of parliament and hold an executive position at local authority level, it is still possible to hold several local elective offices concurrently. Structural reforms have not included the commune level, which nevertheless accounts for most local public expenditure. This exposes the hidden issue behind the current reforms. If the single office rule were to be applied and groupings of local authorities included in the reform, the ‘career politician economy' would be ruined. In other words, intercommunality and the holding of multiple offices at present enable several thousand elected representatives to make a career of their work, and their economic survival would come under direct threat if the reforms were to be fully implemented.

Since the 19th century, the country' administrative organisation has been based on municipalities, provinces and the state. The number of municipalities has gradually declined, and problems have been encountered in organising major conurbations. There have been longstanding efforts to establish suitable administrative structures for such conurbations, especially for the Randstad area, and to reduce the number of the provinces. However, this has not been possible due to constitutional and political obstacles. The latest reform, in 2014, leaves the 12 provinces in place and abolishes compulsory intercommunal structures, although it created the metropolitan region of Rotterdam, the Hague and the region of Amsterdam, which is linked with neighbouring provinces through informal modes of operation.

Regionalisation on mainland Portugal was rejected by the electorate in the referendum of 1998. Consequently the process of regionalisation has taken place without any regional administrative units having been created, so to speak. Powers over spatial planning, infrastructure and development have been transferred to regional development commissions, which are decentralised central government agencies in five administrative regions. Relatively large intercommunal structures with powers in the same areas have also been set up. However, they are not local authorities, even in the metropolitan areas of Lisbon and Porto. Legislation concerning them has been revised several times in recent years. Ultimately Portugal is still a relatively centralised state. The decentralisation process could be pursued through the transfer of powers to the intercommunal structures.

The creation of metropolitan cities was first planned in 1990, but this only really started to happen after the Del Rio Act of 2014. The reform concerns nine major conurbations outside Rome. It is part of the wider reform of the state being undertaken by the Renzi government and is a response to the limited success of the regions. Like an upside‑down pyramid, metropolitan cities are underpinned by municipalities. Their governance entails various forms of democracy and they derive their dynamism from the local level. Metropolitan cities replace provinces within the same territorial boundaries. Metropolitan mayors automatically become the mayor of the main municipality in the province.

The answer to the question posed in the title of this contribution is not entirely straightforward, although it does highlight the merger process affecting local authorities in particular at the municipal level in many European (e.g. Germany and Switzerland) and non‑European (e.g. Japan) countries. Intercommunalities are constantly changing and evolving towards new statuses, including in metropolitan areas. The development of the metropolis is a specific response for large cities, with the process being pushed to the extreme in Lyon, for example, with the creation of a special local authority status. However, parliament has also paved the way for another phenomenon, which some people originally derided, but which is seeing unexpected growth, namely new communes. Their originality and interest is clear, and this can preserve the communes' original identity. In its introduction and conclusion, this contribution focuses specifically on this duality between intercommunalities and communes, which may actually lead to the emergence of a new type of commune.

There are very many French communes, they are very old, and local people are greatly attached to them. However, they are currently going through all sorts of different changes, which entail and require extensive reforms. Communes still retain their ‘general competence' (while that of the departments and the regions has been abolished). However, the real situation increasingly differs from the traditional theoretical framework: intercommunality is being developed, and its different forms are increasingly prevailing upon communes, whose competences are increasingly being transferred to intercommunal cooperation agencies, which progressively integrate their members over time. In parallel, differences between communes are growing as they exercise different general interest functions requiring increasingly extensive and complex cooperation with other entities, including the state. However, these changes have not yet led to an overhaul of communes.

The finances of the ‘municipal sector' (communes, intercommunalities, the metropolises), which account for nearly 60% of total local finances, have grown faster than GDP, without new competences having been transferred from the state. This situation is no longer tenable. If public services are to maintain their levels of investment and performance, substantial savings will need to be made. These will only come about through an extensive reorganisation, in which intercommunalities and the metropolises will be strengthened with a view to achieving quantifiable rationalisation.

To make up for territorial disparities impacting upon municipalities' financial capacity, Sweden has set up an equalisation system which comprises five strands. The two principal ones are the redistribution of income and the equalisation of costs. The others concern grants for infrastructure, grants for input costs, and an accrual account. Each of these components is divided between a specific system for the municipalities and a specific system for the counties. The system makes it possible to reconcile significant local autonomy with equal access to the same level of service for all citizens.

While numerous competences have been transferred to local and regional authorities, their use is still broadly shaped by too many over-detailed central government regulations. Local and regional authorities clearly have greater power to apply and adapt legislation, but this is still insufficient. So-called constitutional obstacles are relative. This is particularly the case concerning the binding nature of planning regulations adopted by the regions in order to exercise their competences.

The NOTRe Act of 7 August 2015 on the Republic's new territorial organisation extended the regions competences in the field of economic development, economic planning and support to businesses. It strengthened their leading role in this area, which had been established by the Act of 27 January 2014. However, this pre‑eminent role is disputed; the metropolises are emerging as competing powers in the economic field and the state still plays a predominant role in the economic field. Cooperation is thus necessary on the one hand between regions and the state, and on the other hand between the regions and other authorities.

Despite the decentralisation of competences in the field of urban and spatial planning, they are still areas of shared competence. Reforms of urban planning legislation have constantly expanded its remit. The fact that local authorities in France are dispersed has meant that it has taken 20 years for the idea that planning needs to be done at intercommunal level to prevail. However, the legislation has not yet been fully implemented. The NOTRe Act provides regions with a regulatory planning tool which seeks to integrate the various sectoral planning tools used to enforce planning regulations. However, it is impossible to anticipate the use the regions will make of these new powers, given the experience of the former SRADT regional spatial planning and development system, the reorganisation of the regions and new powers acquired by the metropolises.

The case of social work demonstrates that the fields of competences approach makes no sense. It has contributed to the dispersed development of policies that are nonetheless underpinned by varied needs, even though they all come under the social work heading. Behind this lies a huge range of different measures which now need to be organised differently in order to stop denying the interlinking of different public policies. While intercommunalities can compete with the departments regarding some of their competences in this field, closer coordination between social policies and economic policies would help reinforce the role of the regions. The creation of a ‘fifth risk' covered by the social security authorities no longer seems to be on the agenda.

Both the state and different local and regional authorities intervene in the fields of education, culture and sport. However, the legal organisation of the relationships between them is unsatisfactory. Their respective competences are not clarified by the idea of state prerogative, the principle of subsidiarity or attempts at managerial rationalisation, aside from the fact that the state has constitutional responsibility for education. It would therefore be more appropriate to organise collaborative modes of action and co‑financing on the basis of actual practices; however, efforts to adopt the education community model have met with limited success and it is not to be found in the field of culture and sport. Innovative solutions nevertheless lie in this direction.

Recent legislation gives the regions and intercommunalities responsibility for the local governance of energy transition. On one hand intercommunalities are gradually being involved in the governance of energy companies; on the other hand, with the development of renewable energy sources, local and regional authorities are being encouraged to invest in energy production. They are also being encouraged to develop their action in the field of energy savings and distribution networks. The information provided by intelligent computers could clarify local policies.

The NOTRe Act set out to give the regions significantly increased powers in the transport field. They were supposed to become the main players involved in determining mobility policies. They have indeed been given new powers, particularly in the road transport field, as well as a bigger planning and coordination role through the SRADDET regional spatial planning, sustainable development and territorial equality system. However, it has been necessary to provide other local authorities with guarantees to ensure they have a capacity to act and to react. This has been achieved both through the cooperative process used to prepare the SRADDET and the creation of opportunities to organise the transfer of powers.

Administration, which is perceived as being the embodiment of the general interest, is still ‘fictional' for certain groups, who do not see what it does for them. Through a description of the effects, referred to here as the ‘absent administration' and ‘asymmetric compensation', this article aims to understand the causes of these processes as dysfunctions. These are to be found in organisational, technical and material deficiencies and issues related to resources management present within the administration, which in turn have implications for the users of these services and make it difficult for them to recognise the existence of their right and/or benefit, thus posing difficulties.

France's representative democracy has been poorly developed owing to its institutional history, and it must involve citizens more closely. Various participatory practices are being developed through public enquiries on planning projects. Public debate has become the norm. Experience confirms that this is a good thing in principle. Forms of public debate are becoming more diverse, although problems do arise. Controversies surrounding projects raise questions about the development of public policies. Aside from the need to ensure that information is clear and procedures are transparent, there has to be interaction with the level where decisions are really taken. It is suggested that parliament should take ownership of the processes of public debate. By revitalising the relationship with civil society, the legitimacy of national representation and institutions should hopefully be renewed.