SOCIALIST INTERGOVERNMENTAL POLICY DURING THE MITTERRAND ERA

Many observers of French politics see intergovernmental decentralization as President Mitterrand's most impressive domestic policy accomplishment. This article assesses the current state of affairs in the French intergovernmental system by focusing on how Socialist reforms have altered relations among levels since the early 1980s. It examines the Mitterrand government's most recent effort to address remaining nettlesome issues in a system that is, ten years after the first legislation, still very much in flux. Using evolution in intergovernmental finances as an indicator of changing center/periphery relations, this study reveals both fundamental transformations and significant continuity in the French system.