Territorial administration and political control. Decentralization in France

International audienceThe paper is based on intensive longitudinal field research. It suggests an interpretative model of territorial governement in France. Relations between national and local authorities as well as policy-making processes suggest that the centralized state has face a major decline of its hegemony and that decentralization reforms have induced a polycentric dynamic. Seven basic characteristics and three key properties of the model are discussed. The emerging model is neither a new localism nor a new centralism pattern. It is the product of incremental and ongoing trade-offs between centrifugal and centripetal forces. This complexity reflects a situation that is under the rather conservative, as well tight, control of national politicians who hold multiple local elected mandatesCet article donne un modèle interprétatif synthétique de l'état et de l'évolution du gouvernement des affaires territoriales en France, en prenant appui sur une large gamme d'enquêtes de terrain. Il énonce dix propriétés fondamentales de ce modèle. Il explique comment un milieu trans partisan de politiciens cummulant des mandats exerce un contrôle étroit sur le maintien de ce modèle, malgré les forces centrifuges qui le traversent