French plan to remap nation vexes regions
France's administrative regions - Normandy, Alsace, Burgundy, etc - have long been part of the identity of citizens of this diverse country. Now, merging some of them is seen as a logical way to save money on bureaucracy, and the French support it - as long as it's someone else's turf.
The recent proposal of France's new prime minister to cut the number of regions in half by 2017 is provoking sharp disputes - especially in areas with strong historical identity. It's somewhat like erasing the state lines between Texas and Oklahoma.
A poll suggests that 68 percent of the French believe the measure to be a necessity - but 77 percent reject the disappearance of their own region. Polling agency LH2 questioned 5,111 people nationwide in February and March. The margin of error was 1.4 percent.
"This is where we will learn who the real reformers are and who are the conservatives," French President Francois Hollande said this month on national TV. He's trying to counter his image as a man afraid of unpopular cost-cutting reforms that many economists say his nation needs in order to thrive.
The reform is a long-running idea that was considered by the previous conservative government but never implemented, partly because of the difficulty of agreeing on a new map.
The numerous French territorial divisions - 22 regions, 100-plus departments and no fewer than 36,000 communes - is often referred to as a "mille-feuille," after the French dessert made up of multiple layers of puff pastry and cream.
The government wants to halve the number of regions to 11 or 12, though the precise division has not been decided yet. France's overseas territories aren't involved.
The proposal has stirred up the traditional attachment of French people to their regions, and sometimes strong feelings against sharing the same authorities as their neighbors.
In Alsace, bordering Germany, 61 percent of respondents to the poll said they don't want to join neighboring Lorraine, which has suffered from the deep decline of its mining and metallurgy industry.
"If it happens, we will be on the way to destroying our local law, which currently gives us two extra public holidays and better healthcare," said Jean Muller, a 55-year-old inhabitant of Strasbourg, the capital of Alsace. Alsace inherited its legislation from when it was part of Germany until the end of World War I.
If the regions merge, "poor Lorraine would find its interest in receiving subsidies (from the new region), while rich Alsace would pay most of the local taxes," said Muller. A Facebook group against an Alsace-Lorraine merger has gathered more than 10,000 people.
(China Daily 05/14/2014 page10)
