The beginning years of the Socialist Fifth Republic mark the end of the history of failed decentralizing reform efforts. In 1982 the government passed the loi-cadreM, or framework law, which set the stage for the series of laws to follow that transferred executive powers, administrative functions, and financial resources from the central government to the different levels of local government. The process of decentralization, which took place primarily over the next three years, touched every branch of government at local and national levels- from elected officials' duties and number of elective offices to prefects' powers over local officials and judges' jurisdictions – as well as every aspect of public policy and administration, from the delivery of social services and the promotion of economic development to civil service reform. By the time the new neoliberal government in October 1986 declared a “pause” in decentralization to mettre au point certain technical aspects of the legislation, 48 laws and 269 decrees had been promulgated.

The Socialists intended their decentralizing reforms as la grande affaire du septennat, or the main event of President Mitterrand's seven-year term, which would revitalize the periphery politically, administratively, and economically. Mitterrand himself termed it the “most important institutional reform since the beginning of the Third Republic.” Decentralization was to make local government more efficient and costeffective. With decentralization, Mitterrand, like de Gaulle, sought to create more direct links between the center and the periphery, which in this case were to enable the government to “use the resulting social mobilization to accelerate the necessary changes in French society.”