Thus even though in 1980 there were 2

The Court of Auditors to interfere in the debate on territorial reform. Even as the Senate begins tonight review of bills on this reform, with the hearing, in the commission of laws, the Minister of the Interior and local communities, Brice Hortefeux, the institution has made public a thick 170 page report on the conduct by the State of decentralization. For at the outset the judges questioned the fact that the original institutional ambitions have been met.

In a first salvo of criticism, they thus noted that "the governmental organization has not been configured" for effective decentralization. And as Act II of decentralization launched "without a balance in-depth achievements and shortcomings of the previous period", the shooting could not of course be corrected.

Court of Auditors also point without detouring the fact that "the territorial map of skills has not been hierarchical." It seems particularly deplore the fact that the regional level, which was intended to become the reference for the conduct and the number of policy coherence, could emerge as Government speeches had left him thinking. The judges of the rue Cambon, and it recognizes that a recurrent criticism of the first of them, Philippe Séguin, designate clearly the wrong: the clause of general jurisdiction granted at all territorial levels. A spade barely concealed the territorial reform project which, at the present stage, has not yet decided this crucial point.

Severe

While professional tax must soon fade, the report is hardly less severe on the principle of financial autonomy of local and regional authorities. The Court refers to "an arrangement of convenience", "an appearance of respect for the constitutional norm" and also "a unstable fiscal mechanics losing any readability to the modes of funding of decentralization".It points particularly the perverse effects of the choice of the intangible nature of the financial autonomy of the communities listed in Act II of decentralization. As a result, she points out, the Constitutional Act "introduced a lock", "rigid" who "go for example extremely difficult current business tax reform".

In passing, the judges questioned the fact that "the principle of equality as that it follows from the Republican Pact" has been met, the objective of equalization between territories being remained "high", according to them. This is the case in social matters with the RMI and dependency for elderly benefits. "These are often the poorest departments, those who have the least dynamic tax revenues that face at the same time the most important expense," said Philippe Séguin yesterday.

In an another line in the direction of the State, Court of Auditors also regret it "has not always been within the logic of withdrawal sometimes maintaining pure administration assignments which could divest", even though he was able to define the competences transferred to the communities. Unfortunate error which arises for example at the level of transfers of personal including "the effect of relief is still waiting." Thus, even though, in 1980, there were 2.1 million employees of State and territorial officers 1.1 million, there were respectively 2.5 million and 1.6 million in 2006, representing nearly 1 million more! The Court admitted however, that from 2007 and 2008 - more than twenty years after the beginning of decentralisation-, an impact on the population of the State began to be felt. "On their side, the territorial communities conducted recruitment extra, not necessarily traceable to the exercise of the new skills", including the Commons and the intercommunalités, launched Philippe Séguin.