Note 514 — INDEX

Footnote 514: An administrative reform which appears not infrequently in current political discussion in France is the grouping of the departments into "regions" possessing a certain community of character and interest. Each of a score or more of regions might conceivably be made to have an assembly of its own, and within each of them one of the departmental prefects might be given a certain superiority over his colleagues. The principal purpose would be to offset somewhat the nation's present excess of administrative centralization. On this proposal see C. Beauquier, Un projet de réforme administrative; l'organisation régionale en France, in Revue Politique et Parlementaire, Nov. 10, 1909. Cf. A. Brette, La réforme des départements à propos d'une proposition de loi, ibid. On the department as at present constituted the monumental treatise is G. Bouffet et L. Périer, Traité du départements 2 vols. (Paris, 1894-1895). In M. Laferrière, Loi organique départementale du 10 Août 1871 (Paris, 1871) is an annotated copy of the organic statute of 1871. See also G. Dethan, De l'organisation des conseils généraux (Paris, 1889); A. Nectoux, Des attributions des conseillers généraux (Paris, 1895); and P. Chardenet, Les élections départementales (Paris, 1895). An excellent brief statement will be found in M. Block, Dictionnaire de l'administration française (5th ed., Paris and Nancy, 1905), I., 933-948, 1101-1116.(Back)