A MAYOR FOR PARIS – AN EARLY EXAMPLE OF DECENTRALIZATION

This paper analyses the 1975 municipal reform which gave Paris its first elected Mayor since the days of the revolutionary Commune. Local government reform has proved notoriously difficult in France and the policy-making process in this case was complicated by the political situation, following the death of President Pompidou, in April 1974. His successor, Giscard d'Estaing, attempted to marginalize the Gaullist Party and to govern from the centre. Paris was the testing ground for this political strategy. The capture of the mayorship by the Gaullist Jacques Chirac was a personal humiliation for the President.
The reform demonstrates the reluctance of French governments, compared with their British counterparts, to radically mould their local government institutions. In particular, the constant reference during the debate to the words 'Mayor' and 'Commune', which have great symbolic power in France, arguably prevented the elaboration of an institutional structure adapted to the peculiar needs of the Paris urban area.