ABSTRACT
France has undergone important changes over the past two decades. But these changes are far from being unambiguous. In 1987, Yves Meny insisted that, despite being commonly considered as "the prototype of centralization" (1987: 88), the French system of relations between centre and periphery has always been more complex than commonly thought. Two aspects were particularly underscored: first, the strong presence of the "local" at the central level and the persistence of "localist" values in the French political culture; and second, the ability of local actors to tame central influence in daily negotiations on public policy implementation (Grémion 1976).
