Reflections on the evolution of public service in French law

This paper contains a brief analysis of an updated state of a classic issue: the development of French public service law. Through this topic we shall examine the changes which have influenced and have continued to influence administrative law. Not only can administrative law be brought down to public service law, but also, as experience shows, changes public services have experienced. Its concept and legal regime have had great influence on the all inclusive system of relations which the administration has with „its“ own law. Supporting this thesis, we offer a double demonstration. The first represents the necessarily brief thoughts on the position the public service has taken in the historical development of what in France is called „administrative law“. The public service has really always undertaken the very movement of that administrative law (First Part). In this story we can differentiate among three big phases, (very unequal importance). After the public service decisively contributed to the building of administrative law as a separate legal field, i.e. out of the area of general law (1.-A), it experienced a long turbulent period which matches what the doctrine mainly calls the „crisis“ of administrative law (1.-B). However, in recent times, we have perhaps borne witness to a certain stabilisation of the public service and the law on public activity. (1.-3). After presenting the changes in the public service in the long history of administration, we will dedicate ourselves to confronting the metamorphosis of the French concept of current public services (Second Part). The legal identity of the French concept of public services is experiencing significant metamorphoses under the particular influence of three great appearances: firstly, meeting between public services law and market competition law (2.-A), secondly, onset of new interaction between the public service/public services and territories (2.-B) and lastly, excluding public service law in contemporary discussion on secularity (2.-C)