France shows the perils of powerless local democracy
Might this month's French elections be the prelude to another French Revolution?
The problems with these dismal elections are many — low turnout, moribund public debate, the popularity of politicians running as Putinist populists, and an uninspiring incumbent president, Emmanuel Macron. But at the heart of the French democratic recession is a void where local democracy should be.
That void stems from France's highly centralized system of government.
Democracy, at its core, is a local thing — everyday people governing themselves. But France's powerful national government makes most decisions. France's 36,000 municipalities lack even the power and independence to decide on the democratic tools they use.
The president and the national government control taxes and spending (80% of public spending in France happens at the national level, compared to around 50% in Germany and the U.S.), as well as major policy areas.
The result is a lack of local investment and development that contributes to diminishing social mobility, and to divides between urban and rural areas.
To prevent opponents of democracy from exploiting such divisions and filling this local void, France must empower local governments to go their own way and make their own decisions.
A shift to local control in France — the country of Montesquieu and Tocqueville — would resonate globally. It also could spark badly needed democratization in North and West Africa, where former French colonies have struggled with local development.
But such a change is considered highly unlikely. France's centralization is a defining characteristic, dating to the original French Revolution, and the Jacobin insistence on a “one and indivisible republic. Back then, a centralized state seemed necessary in a nation where half of the people did not speak French. Today, fears linger that regions might break away if they had more autonomy.
Macron, despite winning the presidency with a door-knocking campaign, has reinforced centralization. He's micro-managed the nation, reduced the authority of mayors, and made demands of localities while cutting their budgets.
“I make absolutely no apology for the verticality of power,” Macron told one literary magazine.
Of course, none of Macron's major opponents — not even Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo — made a major issue of the country's lack of local power. That has frustrated some of France's more ambitious cities, who are limited to “experiments” in local democracy.
In Grenoble, a diverse, university-oriented city in the Alps, local officials have tried to increase local democratic participation and enact climate-friendly policies. But the national government has used budget cuts to limit these efforts.
“This `Macronesque' power is overwhelming,” Grenoble Mayor Eric Piolle told an interviewer. “It has a Jacobin quality, whereas, in fact, modern society should be based on equality, a network of actors working together.”
A movement to decentralize power in France would have natural allies: the hundreds of thousands of citizens who serve in powerless local governments. And there are strong contemporary models for democratic decentralization from centralized authority, from Ukraine to Indonesia.
Opening the doors to that sort of local democracy would require changes in France's constitution. About three dozen French mayors have begun an effort to bring these about, the scholar and activist Clara Egger says. That coalition is pursuing constitutional changes that would introduce Swiss-style direct democracy, and make it easier to amend the constitution, with the goal of inspiring more local self-government.
Such changes have been considered political longshots. But these elections show French democracy at the precipice. To prevent the fall, the best strategy is more robust local self-government.