ABSTRACT
For the last forty years France has both contributed to the emergence of a new political system and, at the same time, had to adapt to it. This novel phenomenon can be seen from the changes that have taken place within the French political and administrative system and which intensified following the publication of the Commission’s White Paper on the Completion of the Internal Market and the signature of the Single European Act. In fact, from the mid-1980s onwards, there has been an acceleration in the process of the European construction in France, which paradoxically was not fully acknowledged by the French people until February 1992 with the signing of the Treaty on European Union. This chapter analyses some of the changes and adaptations that have been imposed by the creation of the Community on French central government since the signing of the Single European Act. To that end, three arguments will be explored. They will focus first upon the attitude of the higher echelons of public administration. Second, the paper will explore the challenge to the traditional model of intra-administrative co-operation that this process represents. And finally, the evolution of various forms of mediation that now exist between administration and interest groups.
