Territorial Administration and Political Control: Decentralization in France Trapped in Localism

Based on recent field research, the paper suggests an interpretative model of territorial government in France. Relations between national and local authorities as well as policy- making processes suggest that the centralized State has faced a major decline of its hegemony and that decentralization reforms have induced a polycentric dynamics. Seven basic characteristics and three key properties of the model are discussed. The emerging model fits neither a new localism nor a new centralism pattern. It is the product of on-going incremental trade-offs between centrifugal and centripetal rationales. This complexity reflects a situation that is under the rather conservative and tight control of national politicians holding multiple local elected mandates