Even after the 2003 Constitutional reform, which will be considered at some length in this paper, France appears to be the only one of the five major European nations determined to resist a form of polycentric state development on its mainland. Germany, Spain, to a lesser extent the UK and Italy have each undergone developments that can in some senses be labelled as federal, or quasi-federal. In the case of France, though a distinctive form of sub-national governance has evolved, it has been bounded by a powerful coalition of centralising institutions (especially the Council of State), state-centric professional interests (in the teaching unions, for example, or amongst social workers or tax officers) and widely disseminated ideas, equating republican equality with uniformity. For many French citizens, decentralisation is synonymous with social regression, unequal provision, even a return to a pre-republican social order. Upstanding republicans equate territorial uniformity with ideas of progress, equal opportunity and citizenship. The building of France as a modern state-nation provides the key to understanding this equation of territorial identity and political reaction. Regional political formations are, almost by definition, suspected by a certain brand of republican of anti-republican intent. The French State building enterprise has, historically speaking, been remarkably successful in inculcating deeply rooted beliefs linking the national territory with social progress. We touch here at the core of state sovereignty which, in the French case, is intimately tied in with perceptions of national prestige and territorial hierarchy.

The centralised state tradition is nowhere more powerful than in the domain of territorial administration and local government. In the traditional French model of territorial administration, the general interest is safeguarded by the benevolent state, planning the development of the whole of the French territory in the public good. As only the state can embody this general will, so it is essential that it be organised systematically at all levels, down to the tax offices and sub-prefectures in small French towns. The deep penetration of the state into civil society is characteristic of the Napoleonic model of state-society relations. In its positive interpretation, the French republican model is held up as the paradigm for a modern public administration, guaranteeing neutrality, equal and fair treatment and good public services. French citizens have a right to equality and a duty to accept uniformity. In the interests of equity, all parts of the French territory must be treated exactly the same. These beliefs explain the opposition of self-identified republicans to adapting institutions to different territorial realities, whether in New Caledonia, Corsica or on the French mainland.

In response to accusations of anti-republicanism, decentralisers in France dismiss French centralisation (usually known as 'Jacobinism') as a deliberate smokescreen to allow a small Parisian elite to perpetuate its power. Certain regionalists go so far as to argue that France is an artificial construction, bound together by repressive rules and a refusal to acknowledge regional diversity, customs and languages. In practice the dogma of equality of treatment grinds away at regional identities and suffocates local and regional difference in the French cultural mosaic. Worse, equality is a misnomer, since Paris prospers, while the provinces continue to form part of the French desert. France, they argue, can only temporarily resist the relentless pressures that have produced varying degrees of asymmetrical federalism in France's European neighbours, Germany, Spain, now the UK and Italy. Looking to Europe to sweep away the vestiges of Jacobin centralisation, they concede the formidable capacity for resistance of the French state machine.

The paper presents a historically informed overview of decentralisation in France. Section One presents the traditional model of French territorial administration, sometimes known as that of cross-regulation. Section Two explores France's untidy decentralisation reforms of the early 1980s and their lasting consequences. Section Three examines the gradual evolution of a distinctive pattern of sub-national governance in France. In Section Four we consider the Constitutional reform of 2003. We conclude by revisiting the issues raised in this introduction.