An outline of the principal advantages of and obstacles to decentralization in France.
This paper discusses how France has remained far more centralized than many of its European neighbors and seeks to explain why this is so. It considers a number of factors including its highly divided social and political history and attitudes towards state power. It also explores the recent growth in decentralization in France and attempts to reveal that while France has benefited from decentralization in several areas, it has been unable to commit fully to the process due to a number of inherent obstacles which derive from a “cultural and historical legacy” that has been responsible for France’s highly centralized nature.
One of the key reasons behind France’s long history of centralization is that of its highly divided political values. It is generally accepted that the more a society is divided the more likely it is to have a centralized government and vice versa. In a homogeneous society with shared interests and values it can be assumed that it is safe to allow decentralization, yet this has certainly not been the case in France (at least until the late 1960s) where the government and its opposition have been completely split throughout much of France’s history. Logically, it then follows that the French government would be less enthusiastic for decentralization as it may have allowed for a loss of power to opposition parties.