ABSTRACT
The alacrity with which the Socialists moved to pass the loi cadre (framework law) regarding “the rights and liberties of communes, departments, and regions” was in stark contrast to the immobilism that characterized the previous governments. If nothing else, it was already an unparalleled achievement that the principal decentralist legislation was accomplished at such a high speed by Gaston Defferre, the Minister of Interior and Decentralization of the new Socialist government. Thanks to the central position that decentralization acquired in the PS reform agenda by the time it got to power (it was hence dubbed “the principal business of the seven-year presidential term” (la grande affaire du septennat)), but also in small part thanks to the political weight and personal determination of Defferre, the framework law of March 2, 1982 was the first major law enacted by the government, which only came to power in May 1981 and achieved a majority in the National Assembly in the following month. Defferre had the cabinet endorse the bill as early as July 1981 and, by the end of January 1982, Parliament passed its final version into law. With the Socialist opposition now in government, decentralization was finally put into practice.
