France
In the late 1980s a process of decentralisation was undertaken by the French government. Initially regions were created and elected regional assemblies set up. Together with the departmental councils these bodies have responsibility for infrastructure spending and maintenance (Schools and highways) and certain social spending. They collect revenues through property taxes and various other taxes. In addition a large part of spending is provided by direct grants to such authorities.
Local government spending in France represents 19% (189 billion euros) of total government spending.
Read more about this topic: Devolution
Famous quotes containing the word france:
“Intellectuals can tell themselves anything, sell themselves any bill of goods, which is why they were so often patsies for the ruling classes in nineteenth-century France and England, or twentieth-century Russia and America.”
—Lillian Hellman (1907–1984)
“It is not enough that France should be regarded as a country which enjoys the remains of a freedom acquired long ago. If she is still to count in the world—and if she does not intend to, she may as well perish—she must be seen by her own citizens and by all men as an ever-flowing source of liberty. There must not be a single genuine lover of freedom in the whole world who can have a valid reason for hating France.”
—Simone Weil (1909–1943)
“I shall not bring an automobile with me. These inventions infest France almost as much as Bloomer cycling costumes, but they make a horrid racket, and are particularly objectionable. So are the Bloomers. Nothing more abominable has ever been invented. Perhaps the automobile tricycles may succeed better, but I abjure all these works of the devil.”
—Henry Brooks Adams (1838–1918)