¹ Quoted in Tocqueville, Alexis De, The Old Regime and the French Revolution (Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1955), p. 32.Google Scholar

² Savigny, Jean De, L'Etat contre les communes? (Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1971)Google Scholar, from the introduction.

³ For a more detailed picture of the conceptual framework of administrative theorists, see Milch, Jerome, ‘A Research Note: the Study of Local Government in France’ (unpublished paper, MIT, 1972).Google Scholar

⁴ Worms, Jean-pierre, ‘Le prefet et ses notables’, Sociologie du Travail, VIII (1966), p. 250.Google Scholar

⁵ The reasons for this absence of empirical research have been explored to some extent in Milch, ‘A Research Note’.

⁶ This paper is derived from the author's doctoral dissertation, ‘Paris is Not France: Policy Outputs and Political Values in Two French Cities’, MIT, 1973.Google Scholar

⁷ These statistics, which are taken from the 1968 census, are for the commune itself and not for the metropolitan area. Neither Montpellier nor Nimes have much of a suburban fringe surrounding the city and they are, consequently, only the twenty-fifth and forty-second largest agglomerations in France.

⁸ Some evidence to this effect is presented in Chap. 1 of the dissertation cited above.

⁹ The tax on entertainment was replaced in 1970 by a state subsidy, but it was collected, during the period of this analysis, directly by local authorities.

¹⁰ An important change in the methods of calculating revenues and expenditures from public services was introduced in 1969 and direct comparisons with earlier years are virtually impossible. The figures in Table 3, consequently, cover only the 1966–1968 period.

¹¹ For a detailed look at operational expenditures and investments in Montpellier and Nimes, see Chap. 2 of the dissertation.

¹² These loans cover 95 per cent of the cost of construction. The HLM council must seek other sources of funds to finance the remaining 5 per cent.

¹³ HLM councils must also request a guarantee from the municipal council or the conseil geniral since they are not technically ‘moral personalities’ and cannot make decisions which are binding on their clients. Approval of these requests is, however, perfunctory, since public housing boards are responsible to the prefect for their activities, and there is little risk that they will default on their obligations.

¹⁴ Exact figures are surprisingly difficult to obtain, but the figures for Nimes were provided by opposition elements in the city and are not likely to have been exaggerated.

¹⁵ Midi Libre, 24 October 1964.

¹⁶ Midi Libre, 26 June 1970.

¹⁷ The conflict, of course, involves both parties, and officials of the departmental HLM organization have been equally unwilling to co-operate with city authorities.

¹⁸ There was, however, considerable discontent among those who were forced to sell their land for the construction of a ZUP (Zone d'urbanisation en priorite) in Nimes.

¹⁹ The regulations permit the municipal council to vote an ‘indemnity’ for the mayor and his assistants. The level of these indemnities, which is determined by the State, is not sufficient to permit local authorities to survive without an additional source of income.

²⁰ Titre XI, Article 72. See Beaunez, Roger and Dejour, Max, La Commune, le conseil municipal … et les citoyens? (Paris: Editions Universitaires, 1971).Google Scholar

²¹ Midi Libre, 22 March 1965.

²² This judgement is based on interviews with council members in both cities.

²³ A recent controversy over an urban renewal project in Boston, which has been rejected twice by the Massachusetts state government even though no state funds are involved, illustrates the strict controls with which American cities frequently have to cope.

²⁴ A concise picture of the legal status of French communes is available in Kesselman, Mark, The Ambiguous Consensus: A Study of Local Government in France (New York: Knopf, 1967), Appendix B.Google Scholar

²⁵ Kesselman, , The Ambiguous Consensus, p. 92Google Scholar and Worms, ‘Le prefet et ses notables’.

²⁶ Both the mayor and his chief assistants in both cities indicated very strongly in personal interviews that all planning was done in the mairie. Nonetheless, the prefecture is often informed of plans before final decisions are made, as local officials, for diplomatic reasons, are anxious to avoid alienating the prefect.

²¹ Kesselman in The Ambiguous Consensus, devotes an entire chapter to ‘Enlisting Legislators’ Support’, and his footnotes provide some indication of the literature on the subject. The effectiveness of indirect influence is, however, a different matter and less research has been devoted to this important, but difficult, issue.

²⁸ Kesselman, , The Ambiguous Consensus, pp. 98–9Google Scholar, makes a similar point.

²⁹ The BRL is an economic organization involving both public and private capital. It was set up by the State in order to serve as a catalyst for agricultural change in the Languedoc. The Company, however, has run into financial difficulties and has been anxious to sell its water to the communes in order to help meet its obligations.The decision by the Conseil Superieur de l ‘Hygiène to approve the sale of water to Montpellier may well have been related to the government's interest in keeping the company afloat. For details on the BRL, see Souchon, Marie-francoise, La Compagnie nationale d'aménagement de la region du Bas-Rhone-Languedoc (Paris: Edition Cujas, 1968).Google Scholar

³⁰ See, for example, Fried, Robert, ‘Communism, Urban Budgets, and the Two Italies: a Case Study in Comparative Urban Polities’, Journal of Politics, XXXIII (1971), 1008–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar