Considering that the French metropolitan area makers decided not to respect the 1999’s law and its spirit, this paper intends to highlight the reasons why the French State accepted this situation so easily. First, the degrees of freedom taken by local elected actors are stressed thanks to two examples : the determination of the list of common tasks on the one hand, and the choice of the boundaries of the metropolitan area on the other hand. Then, the idea that the French State, thanks to its non interference and to fiscal incentives, has chosen to go round local inertia with a tacit and indirect strategy is contended. The final long term goal would concern the will to reduce, in spite of the numerous opponents, the number of French cities.
Download Info
To download:
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the
proper application to
view it first. Information about this may be contained
in the File-Format links below. In case of further problems read
the IDEAS help
file. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS
site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
Find related papers by JEL classification: H30 - Public Economics - - Fiscal Policies and Behavior of Economic Agents - - - General H73 - Public Economics - - State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations - - - Interjurisdictional Differentials and Their Effects R51 - Urban, Rural, and Regional Economics - - Regional Government Analysis - - - Finance in Urban and Rural Economies
This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports: