Institutional architecture

Who does what between the French State and local authorities?

Before reforming public administration, one must know who decides, who implements, who pays and who audits. This page provides the institutional map needed before discussing mergers, transfers or abolition of public bodies.

Before reforming, understand the three layers: the State, local authorities and inter-municipal bodies

In everyday language, “the State” is often used for the whole public sector. In legal and administrative terms, that is misleading. The central State operates through ministries and deconcentrated territorial services under government authority. Alongside it, communes, departments and regions are territorial authorities administered by elected councils. They are not local branches of the Government: the Constitution guarantees their free administration under conditions laid down by statute.

Inter-municipal cooperation adds another layer without creating a general hierarchy. An EPCI — a public establishment for inter-municipal cooperation — allows communes to exercise certain powers jointly and to manage services or projects at a broader scale. On 1 January 2026, the French Directorate-General for Local Authorities counted 34,875 communes, 1,252 tax-raising EPCIs and 8,113 inter-municipal syndicates. Those figures do not prove that every structure is a duplicate; they describe an institutional landscape that must be mapped function by function before deciding what should be merged, transferred or abolished.

Decentralisation and deconcentration are not the same thing

Decentralisation gives powers to territorial authorities that have elected bodies and their own legal autonomy. Deconcentration remains within the State: central government entrusts territorial implementation of State powers to prefects and local State services. A prefect acts for the State; a mayor or the president of a departmental or regional council leads an autonomous local authority within its statutory powers. Confusing the two mechanisms creates the false impression that every local public body belongs to one administrative chain of command.

Article 72 of the French Constitution also states that no territorial authority may exercise tutelage over another. A region therefore does not generally command a department, and a department does not command a commune. Where several authorities must cooperate, legislation may organise joint action. This is why serious reform cannot be reduced to the slogan “remove one layer”: one must first establish which tasks disappear, which are transferred and who becomes accountable for them.

Who does what? Answer by function, not by slogan

Some functions remain primarily State responsibilities because they concern sovereignty, national rules or equality before the law. Others are assigned to territorial authorities. Communes are the basic proximity level; departments play a major role in social and territorial solidarity; regions have important responsibilities in economic development, training, mobility and spatial planning. Inter-municipal bodies exercise powers transferred by their member communes, with the exact scope depending on their legal category and current legislation.

Shared policies, co-financing and satellite bodies nevertheless remain common. That is where citizens can feel that everyone is involved but nobody is clearly responsible. The reform method proposed on Delta-Sierra is therefore to build a responsibility matrix for each public function: who decides, who implements, who pays, who owns the data, who audits the result and to whom the citizen can demand an explanation.

A reform rule: one readable mission and an identifiable accountable authority

Simplification becomes concrete when a citizen can answer a basic question: “who is responsible for the outcome?” Cooperation between several actors may remain necessary, but it should not make accountability disappear. Reform may keep several participants while naming a clear lead authority, or transfer an entire function to the level best placed to deliver it.

Any claimed saving must then be calculated after transfers. Closing a legal entity while moving its staff, contracts, premises and functions into another administration does not make its entire former budget disappear. A genuine saving consists only of costs that actually cease, after subtracting transition costs. This accounting discipline is essential if institutional simplification is to improve public finances instead of merely redrawing the organisation chart.

Official sources for verification

This page deliberately separates legal rules, structural figures and reform analysis. The sources below allow readers to return to the constitutional text and to data published by the Directorate-General for Local Authorities.