"Our first wish is to ensure that our fellow citizens find their way back to the polling stations and are no longer tempted to substitute other forms of manifestation of their will, dangerous for the cohesion of our Nation", write in the preamble. the PS president of Regions of France Carole Delga and her vice-president (ex-LR) Renaud Muselier, who supports Emmanuel Macron in the presidential election in April.
"Through this white paper, we want to affirm that the effectiveness of the power of the State is weakened by the excessive centralization of institutions", they add, believing that "decentralization makes it possible to restore our fellow citizens' faith in the public action".
In this document, which Ms. Delga had announced in July after her appointment as president of the regions, the local authorities ask for "full and entire responsibilities in their areas of competence, that the State cease all intervention there, to simplify the system and make it less vertical".
On the constitutional level, the regions are asking for Corsica "a status of reinforced autonomy in the Republic" which provides for "the transfer of powers in certain matters" but which would exclude the sovereign powers which "remain the responsibility of the State".
Note that the Ile-de-France region, chaired by Valérie Pécresse, LR candidate for the Elysée, has issued "a wording reservation" on this proposal.
On the question of regional languages, the regions wish to "secure" them and integrate their "immersive teaching" into the Constitution, so that they are "fully compatible with the affirmation of French as the language of the Republic".
Among the other measures, the regions are asking in particular for competences in transport and forest management, pleading to regain "fiscal power" and demanding "new electoral constituencies for the European Parliament" in order to guarantee "a fairer representation of all national territories".
After this white paper, the regions propose "to engage from the beginning of the five-year period, States General of local freedoms and confidence in public action in each region".
The objective is to "translate the orientations of these Estates General into a constitutional reform and an orientation law on the duration of the five-year term", such as the Gaston Defferre law of 1982.
© 2022 AFP