The Impact of Regionalisation

The success of any reform depends less on the precise wording of the law, decree or circular than on the ways in which the rules are interpreted and applied in day-to-day political and administrative practice. This has certainly been the case for the regional reforms of the Fifth Republic; their success or failure depended particularly on the work of the Prefects and their collaborators in local government. It was the Prefects alone, however, who bore responsibility for the immediate implementation of every law, decree or circular concerning the setting up of the new institutions, the organisation of meetings and the preparation of files and reports. Hence, it is interesting to examine the attitudes and actions of the Prefects in the application of these three ‘waves’ of reforms. Many Prefects, when consulted during the preparation of the different measures, had expressed their basic hostility to the whole idea of regionalisation. These same Prefects, however, were obliged to apply the reforms, and the majority, not suprisingly, experienced some difficulties in adapting themselves to the new frameworks and to their own new powers and functions. After the 1964 decrees, but more especially after the 1972 law, many Prefects came to accept regional institutions as permanent features of the local government system. Furthermore, the number of departmental Prefects who nostalgically recall the halcyon days of ‘departmental independence’ from ‘time-wasting regional interference’, has rapidly declined due to old age, early dismissals and promotions to regional prefectures. During the first ten years of the Fifth Republic, scepticism replaced hostility as the characteristic attitude of Prefects towards regions. During later years, however, there has been general acceptance of the regional institutions, and there is even, amongst Regional Prefects and many of the increasingly numerous ENA graduates in the departmental prefectures, some enthusiasm for regional duties.