France is a Republic whose "organization is decentralized" ; its Constitution says so. But France is an old Jacobin country; its history and culture remind it. The difficulties of adjustment between the State and local authorities on the implementation of responses to the coronavirus crisis are a reflection of this tension; a more institutional than political tension.
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The case of the requisition of masks is a good illustration of this. The president of Bourgogne-Franche-Comté, Marie-Guite Dufay, and the president of the Marseilles metropolis, Martine Vassal, have both complained that the State, via the prefect and the regional health agency (dependent of the ministry), was somehow served first in stocks arrived from China and also including orders from their communities. The quarrel could be settled. But it absurdly reveals the clash between two principles: the principle of subsidiarity, claimed by
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