Toward Regionalism

When Allied troops stormed ashore at Normandy in 1944, the French Resistance there cut all telephone lines to Paris in an attempt to hamstring the Wehrmacht's response. The Germans, however, failed to realize that the lines had been put out of action, so the story goes, for Paris has always been aloof from the rest of France. For cen turies, the capital has been the nation's center of culture, business and politics.

The consequent imbalance of power has disturbed thoughtful Frenchmen for years.

In an incisive study of France's problems today entitled The New French Revolution, British Journalist John Ardagh points out that "Paris over the centuries has sucked the blood out of her provinces." Things were set up that way back in the early days of the French Revolution, when the nation was chopped into nearly 100 illogically ar ranged departments with the firm intention of making every local decision dependent upon Parisian whims. That situation still exists today: "Not a statue can be erected, not a centime spent, without Paris becoming involved," moans a Breton official.

Flocking Alsaciens. Charles de Gaulle hopes to change the situation. Decentralization of power has become his single most urgent domestic program, and with good reason. At least 85% of French industry is concentrated in the area east of a line drawn from Caen in the northwest to Marseille on the Mediterranean. So is the bulk of the population. Because jobs are far more plentiful in Paris than in the provinces, hundreds of thousands of auvergnats, alsaciens, Savoyards and bretons have flocked to the capital. Its traffic density is even more paralyzing than Manhattan's: the broad boulevards and narrow streets are constantly jammed by cursing motorists. Finding a parking place for one's Deux Chevaux (or even one's motorbike) is becoming as difficult as scaling the Eiffel Tower.

To meet these challenges and save Paris from choking to death, De Gaulle last week called for a national referendum this spring on his plans to increase regional power. In preparation for the vote, Gaullist planners propose to split France into 21 "economic regions" centered around eight major provincial centers: Marseille, Lyon, Toulouse, Bordeaux, Nantes, Strasbourg, Lille and Nancy-Metz.

Almost Certain Approval. Each region will be governed by a Paris-appointed prefect, but his decisions will be made in coordination with proposed regional councils consisting of locally elected deputies, representatives of local communes and departments, and appointed officials such as chamber of commerce presidents. These councils will levy local taxes, prepare local budgets and plan economic development. If the plan is approved in the forthcoming referendum--and that approval seems almost certain--the regions may be able to "renew their personality," as French Technocrat Louis Armand once put it, "without having to do it through that monster that is Paris."

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