Socialists dismiss department reforms

THE HEAD of the Socialist Party Martine Aubry has called for protests against plans to reform regional government.

The report, still under preparation by former prime minister Edouard Balladur, looks to streamline the layers of local government which include communes, communautés d'agglomération, departments and regions.

It is due to be published on March 5.

Martine Aubry said the reforms would be purely political and would “strangle the finances” of local government – a stronghold of the Socialist Party.

Aubry has set the date of March 22 for a protest against the measures.

The president of the l'association des départements Claudy Lebreton said: “There’s a willingness in the government to bring regional authorities to heel.”

Among the rumoured proposals in the report is the reunification of Brittany, with the attachment of the Loire-Atlantique department to the region.

Among the suggestions seen by the newspaper Les Echos is a plan to reduce the number of regions in France from 22 to around 15.

A new status of métropoles would be created for large cities and their surroundings. This would almost certainly include Lyon, Lille, Marseille, Bordeaux, Toulouse, Nantes, Nice, Strasbourg, Rouen, Toulon and Rennes.

Métropoles would be given much greater authority over their development – many cities currently have to submit to the authority and funding of their department and region.

While communes along their borders would remain in existence the métropoles would gain overriding power.

Scrapping departments and regions completely has been proposed in the committee drawing up the report but remains a controversial idea among those preparing it and among the wider French public.

One idea is that two levels of government would remain but with clearly defined areas in which they would work.

The size of the administrative zone for Paris is likely to be enlarged to encompass part of the surrounding Ile-de-France region and the various communautés d'agglomération on the city’s borders.

Polls indicate the French are attached to their departments – a system created following the French Revolution.

A plan to scrap department numbers from vehicle number plates met with such opposition that the idea was dropped.

Photo:Afp/Guillaume Baptiste