States Government and Regime Term Paper

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French Government, State, and Regime: An Overview

Vive le Difference! The French phrase, 'long live the distinction or difference,' was coined to celebrate the supposedly innate difference between men and women. These differences were supposed to created a sense of positive tension and excitement between the opposite sexes. However, there is a profound sense between not only the United States, but also the French and many of their European national counterparts, that there is also a substantial cultural, political, and economic 'difference' between France and even her closest allies. And neither France nor America nor the European Union necessarily wants such 'differences' to exist in their current form, as the current century of economic globalization unfolds.

To examine why this is so, it is worth examining how the current structures and operations of the French government, function, how and, when and why (or if) they work to further the aims of the French populace, as well as their impact upon past French culture and life, in everything from language to food to cinema. Currently, the French government is part of a multi-party system and parliamentary and democratic in nature. This means that the French people elect representatives for particular districts to national as well as local office. The national majority party then elects a leader, called the prime minister. The French state is governed by a constitution, which, according to Guy Carcassonne, has one explicitly articulated principle (as opposed to organizational protocols) and one only. This principle is "set forth in the fifth line of article 2 of the Constitution and directly borrowed from Lincoln," in other words, that it is a "government of the people, by the people and for the people." (Carcassonne 2002)

But despite this explicit borrowing from the relatively young land of America's words of freedom, France was until recently largely known for her centralizing tradition in governance. (Phillip 2001) "France was a country where decisions were basically taken in Paris and implemented throughout the country by state-appointed representatives." (Phillip 2001) Localities served the national state, rather than vice versa.

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There are three officially equal structural tiers present in the current French government, according to the national constitution. But while the State does not finance activities outside its own remit, it requires local authorities to help fund some central government projects. The "the task of the prefet," the representative of the State at local districts of government "is consequently rendered more complicated because he finds himself forced to ask for funding for State-run projects," particularly when the state and local parties are different, ideologically and in name. (Phillip 2001)

The French state has made some stabs at decentralization, particularly in the educational system where "this has brought greater diversity and more flexible organization to what was a too uniform, or even monolithic education system.

Greater power is now given to regional and other local authorities placed under the authority of the National Education Minister." ("Education in France," 2001) However, France, even in comparison to its sister European states such as Germany or Italy, which also have attempted to tread a middle line between socialism and capitalism since the end of he second world war, still has a highly complex and famously bureaucratic civil service system.

In his article, "Public Services," in 2001, French political scientist Jacques Fournier noted that, for his fellow French people, public service still assigns "an important role to the State" and the French stress "community" as opposed to individual values. This communal political state ideal was originally expressed "through the setting-up of an advanced system of social protection, the use of planning, and the nationalization of large companies." (Fournier 2001)

Even today, "public services occupy an important place in French life. The French depend on" the state and state services for "their proper functioning, for the maintenance of their security, the guarantee of at least part of their livelihood, education of their children, delivery of healthcare, and access to the infrastructures they need in order to travel around and live in built-up areas." Today, "over 20% of the country's working population is….....

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