Department plans - more details
A united Normandy, a bigger Bretagne and Paris all part of local government changes.
PLANS to dissolve certain regions of France have caused uproar.
More details have emerged from the Balladur committee which is currently investigating ways to streamline the different levels of local government in France.
It is 219 years to the day that the government of France voted to divide the country into 83 departments, breaking up the old provinces and former aristocratic organisation of the territory.
While not due to be officially released until March 5, the plans have already caused consternation among officials who have branded them “stupid”, “corrupt” and a political attack on local government stronghold of the left.
Regions
Reducing the number of regions from 22 to 15 is one idea under discussion. This would involve.
Normandy: Uniting Basse-Normandie and Haute-Normandie into one region.
Picardie: The region would be broken up with the department of Aisne being attached to the Champagne-Ardenne, Oise to the Ile-de-France and Somme to Nord-Pas-De-Calais.
Poitou-Charentes: The region would be broken up between Aquitaine and the Limousin.
Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes: Two regions would merge to create this new block.
Bourgogne-Franche-Comte: These two regions would also be merged together.
Departments
The Loire-Atlantique would move from the Pays-de-la-Loire region and be attached to Bretagne.
The Alsace departments of Bas-Rhin and Haut-Rhin departments would merge.
Paris
The Haute-de-Seine, Val-de-Marne and Seine-Saint-Denis departments would merge with the Paris (75) department to form a Grand Paris department. This would involve scrapping the inter-communal authorities which link up the 124 communes around the city. The method of elections and the way the city is government would also be altered.
Councillors
Two sets of councillors the conseiller régional and the conseiller général would be scrapped and replaced with a conseiller territorial.
Councillors elected at the top of their party list can work at both regional and departmental level, while those at the bottom will simply work in the departments.
A similar such system already operates between department and city level at Paris, Lyon and Marseille.
The aim of this measure is to reduce the number of elected officials from 6,000 to 4,000.
Cantons – the French equivalent of wards – will be redrawn with larger borders.
If voted through, the changes would be implemented between 2010 and 2014.
Métropoles
France’s eight biggest cities; Lyon, Lille, Marseille, Bordeaux, Nantes, Nice, Strasbourg and Toulouse would become métropoles. They would take on the powers of departments within their areas.
