Extract
[...] This law has also established the region as a territorial collectivity in its own right, which until then only had the status of a public establishment of the State (see law of 5 July 1972). It has also endowed the collectivities (region and department, the commune already being so) with an executive power and deliberative assemblies that elect the president of the collectivity. Other important reforms have followed. One generally distinguishes three acts, that is to say three series of reforms of scope, of decentralization: - Act 1982-1982: Defferre laws which mark the founding act of decentralization. [...]
[...] Thus, if the prefect is traditionally the representative authority of the decentralization of central services in the department (police, equipment, territorial development, etc.), other bodies embody the decentralization of state services: regional/public finance departments (DRFiP/DDFiP), regional health agencies regional departments of economy, employment, labor and solidarity (DREETS), departmental departments of competition, consumption and fraud repression (DDCCRF), etc. Today, decentralization is also accompanied by a decentralization of competences to the benefit of territorial collectivities. 2°/ What is decentralization? Provide examples in support of your argumentation. Unlike decentralization, decentralization involves a transfer of powers from the State to separate legal entities with their own legal personality: local authorities. [...]
[...] Law of Local Authorities 1°/ What is decentralization? Provide examples to support your argumentation Decentralization is a modality of organization of the State's services, which remains always unitary and only concerns its own moral personality, but transfers (or 'de-localizes') responsibilities and competences held by central administrations (of the State) to territorial administrations (of the State). More specifically, decentralization « consists of entrusting territorial levels of civil administrations of the State with the power, means and capacity for initiative to animate, coordinate and implement public policies defined at the national and European levels, with the objective of efficiency, modernization, simplification, equity of territories and proximity with users and local actors (art. [...]
[...] This law reaffirms the ability of local authorities to adapt their organization and action to the particularities of their territories, in respect of the principle of equality. In order to protect territorial collectivities, the Constitution enunciates in Articles 34 and 72 the principle of free administration of territorial collectivities. Thus, Article 72, paragraph provides that « in the conditions provided by the law, these collectivities freely administer themselves by elected councils and have a regulatory power for the exercise of their competence The principle of free administration of territorial collectivities therefore has constitutional value (see also the decision of the Constitutional Council: DC 79-104 of 23 May 1979). [...]
[...] The general clause of competence is a principle of organization of territorial collectivities that wants a collectivity to be able to act in areas extending beyond the competences attributed to it, under two conditions: - Presence of a local public interest - The field of intervention does not fall within an exclusive competence of the State or another territorial collectivity Historically, the general clause of competence is linked to the commune, inasmuch as it is the first existing territorial collectivity. The municipal law of April provided that "the municipal council rules, by its deliberations, the affairs of the commune. This provision is today taken up by art. L. 2121-29 of the General Code of Territorial Collectivities (CGCT). The mechanism of the general clause of competence allows to protect the community against the encroachments of the State or those of other communities. [...]
