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Nabarralde | About Nabarra
Nabarra's
Territories in France:
State and Regional Elections
France
has denied nations and aspiring nations within its territory their voice
and imposed obstacles on the way of their cultural development, which
is unacceptable and in breach of very fundamental liberties. It has
used its good old centralist tactics to make sure the geographical division
of the state does not correspond to the cultural provinces because then
these would be a potential threat to the great "nation" the French state
is trying to sustain. This is why Nabarra's truncated territories of
Lapurdi, Behe-Nafarroa and Zuberoa are denied autonomy.
These three Basque territories
do not even form a department by themselves but, together with Bearn,
are part of the Département of the Pyreneés Atlantiques,
with capital in Pau.
A consultant body, the «Council
for the Development of the Basque Country», was formed in 1994.
Since all the Basque municipalities are included in the Council, Basques
nationalists hope to develop closer relations among the three Basque
provinces.
Basque nationalists have
demanded autonomy . After Second World War ended and the French
Assembly began to prepare the text for a new French constitution,
a Basque writer and journalist Mark Legasse drafted a proposal
for an autonomy statute. Deputy Jean Etcheverry-Aintchart
presented the proposal but the Constitutional Commission rejected
it.
During the 1981 general election
campaign, François Miterrand promised Basques their own department.
Miterrand's party won the elections but he didn't keep his promise.
In a 1996 internal vote for a `yes' or `no', the majority of the mayors
in Northern Basque Country voted in favor of a Basque department. This
demand still awaits an answer from Paris.
Territorial administration
in France
Territorial administration
in France is the legacy of a long history of centralisation to which
the past 20 years have brought some changes. France is one of the few
states in the European Union to superimpose four tiers of territorial
administration -- the State, the Region, the Department and the Municipality.
Three Tiers of Local
Administration
In France there are three
levels of government beneath the national level, in ascending order
of size the Municipality, the Department and the Region. These are districts
where administrative decisions made at the national level are carried
out, and at the same time they are decentralised territorial units which
have some powers of their own. Legally speaking, these three levels
of government have their own powers and a certain degree of autonomy
vis-àvis the central government.
The Municipality
(commune)
The municipality (known as
commune in France), dates from 1789, is the basic unit of French
administrative organisation. There are nearly 37,000 municipalities
in France today, many more than are found in the other countries of
the European Union. This high figure is explained by their size -- some
80 percent of them have fewer than 1,000 residents. This situation has
led the government to encourage smaller municipalities to merge to form
urban communities (communautés urbaines) or group together
in association of several municipalities (syndicats intercommunaux).
To encourage this trend, the law of February 6, 1992 defines new forms
of cooperation to rationalise municipal administration by taking into
consideration population size, economic or cultural importance, or common
interests.
The municipalities are restricted
to acting within their immediate vicinity. The scope of their economic
powers has been broadened; originally limited to offering incentives
-- usually fiscal -- to stimulate job creation, it has been enlarged
to include the possibility of granting direct or indirect aid to help
retain jobs (loans, loan guarantees, etc.)
Like the department and the
region, the municipality has an executive (the Mayor) and a deliberative
body (the Municipal Council). The Mayor wears two hats since (s)he is
both an official of the municipality and the State's representative
within the municipality.
As the municipality's chief
executive, the Mayor carries out the decisions of the Municipal Council,
and is the municipality's legal representative. He puts forward the
budget and sees that it is put into effect and is in charge of protecting
and administering municipal holdings. The Mayor also has his own powers;
he is responsible for security and public health and has at his disposal
the municipal administration, which he heads.
As the State's representative,
the Mayor keeps the civil register of births, deaths and marriages and
is an officer ofthe police judiciaire under the authority of
the public prosecutor. The Mayor also performs marriages - all marriages
in France must be performed by a Mayor or his deputy, before any religious
ceremony may take place. He also performs various administrative tasks
including publicising laws and regulations, drawing up the electoral
register and establishing the draft roll of those required to perform
military service.
Mayoral acts are unilateral
administrative acts, generally decisions. They must comply with the
law when they are issued by the Mayor as municipal executive and are
subject to the hierarchical power of the Prefect (see below) when the
Mayor is acting in his capacity as the State's representative.
The deliberative organ of
the municipality is the Municipal Council, which has a number of members
proportional to the population it represents. Municipal Councillors
are elected for six years by direct universal suffrage; they lay down
guidelines for municipal policy, adopt the budget, manage municipal
property and define operation of the municipal administration.
The Department (département)
France has 100 departments,
96 in metropolitan France and four overseas (Martinique, Guadeloupe,
Reunion and French Guiana). Each department is divided into arrondissements.
The arrodissement is further subdivided into cantons, each
of which comprises a number of communes or municipalities.
Since the department was
introduced in 1789, it has developed from a partially decentralised
territorial unit to one with full powers of its own (since 1962). It
has had a prominent role in the administrative organisation of the country
ever since the French Revolution and still has important prerogatives
today.
The responsibilities reserved
to the department lie essentially in the fields of health and social
affairs, facilities in rural areas, departmental roads, and investment
and funding for the operation of high schools (collèges).
For almost 200 years, from
1800 to 1982, the Prefect held the executive power in the department,
but the law of March 1982 modified his area of authority. Appointed
by the government, the Prefect is still the sole representative of the
State's power in the department. In this capacity he represents the
Prime Minister and each of the Cabinet Ministers. He has authority over
the external services of the State in the department and oversees the
administration of the department's territorial subdivisions.
However, the law of March
2, 1982 conferred executive authority for the department on the Chairman
of the General Council. Elected from among its ranks for a six-year
term, the President of the General Council prepares and implements the
council's decisions, including their financing. He represents the department
in legal cases and heads the departmental administration. As the authority
responsible for management of public property in the department, he
has police powers and is responsible for the maintenance of public buildings.
He is also responsible for traffic on departmental roads, without prejudice
to the powers of the Mayors and Prefect in this area.
The deliberative organ of
the department is the General Council, which is made up of General Councillors
elected for a six-year term in two-round majority uninominal voting
organised within the cantons.
The Region
There are 22 regions in metropolitan
France, as well as 4 which are located overseas. They are comprised
of one or more departments.
The region became a territorial
unit in 1982. Its main tasks are in the areas of planning, regional
and economic development, job training, and the construction, equipment
and operation of secondary colleges (lycées).
The President of the Regional
Council is the region's executive authority. He has the same powers
within the region as the President of the General Council does in the
department. However, the region covers a much larger geographical area
than the department.
The deliberative organ of
the region is the Regional Council. Members of these bodies, elected
for a period of six years, are seconded by an Economic and Social Committee
which is an advisory body including representatives of businesses, the
professions, trade unions, employees' organisations, regional associations
and other groups. This committee must be consulted when the national
plan is drafted and carried out, when the regional development plan
is drawn up and when the general lines of the regional budget are defined.
The committee is also free to express opinions on questions concerning
the region and may comment on economic, social or cultural proposals
if the President of the Regional Council requests.
Permanency and Change
in French Territorial Administration
Article 72 of the Constitution
stipulates that the administrative units of the Republic "shall freely
govern themselves through elected councils," and the 1982 reforms did
not change this. The principles of independent administration by territorial
units and free election of the members of their deliberative bodies
are keystones of French territorial administration.
So basic principles and structures
have not changed and there is a clear distinction in the areas where
the different territorial units have jurisdiction, but the decentralisation
laws brought some innovations, especially regarding supervision. Some
degree of ex post facto monitoring of local and regional government
action is necessary in order to reconcile freedom of self-administration
with the need for coordinated action within a unitary state, and the
principle of equality of all citizens must go hand in hand with ensuring
the general interests of the nation as a whole.
The March 1982 law also made
some changes concerning financing. One of the most significant is that
any transfer of State competence to a territorial unit must be accompanied
by a transfer of finances (chiefly fiscal). In practice local taxes
have tended to rise. The reform also conferred on paymasters of the
municipalities, departments and regions the statute of principal paymasters
directly responsible to the Treasury. Finally, it assigned to a new
court, the regional audit boards, a posteriori oversight of
the accounts of the territorial units.
The dencentralisation process,
which has been continually evolving since 1982, has led to noteworthy
changes in French territorial administrative structures. One
of the principal gains has been a better sharing of tasks, with
greater responsibility in all sectors of public life conferred
on the territorial units. Decentralisation continues to be debated
regularly in parliament, an indication of the importance of
this issue in the eyes of all the country's political leaders.
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