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The Political Bureaucracy of France Since the War
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 August 2014
Extract
To comment upon the far-reaching effects of modern warfare upon national life is in these days commonplace. Nevertheless, nearly ten years after Versailles, countless ramifications of the World War's long-term effects remain unexplored. Silent but profound social and political readjustments were set in motion which are only now beginning to be studied by trained observers of human institutions, while the public at large scarcely suspects what is going on.
The administrative organization of France has not escaped these subtle processes. A bureaucratic inheritance surviving a half-dozen political revolutions, it has perhaps been more deeply shaken by events of the last fifteen years than in any period of similar length since the French Revolution itself. Some of these changes bid fair to modify not only the popular attitude toward the ubiquitous fonctionnaire, but the organization and spirit of the civil service as well.
For a proper understanding of the causes and significance of this administrative evolution, we must revert for a moment to the scene as it appeared in 1914. Then the public service of France was a highly centralized hierarchical organization, with a democratic façade, but resting none the less upon the imperial foundations laid by Napoleon. There were as many as 900,000 persons in public employment, including the staffs of the départements and the communes. As in America to-day, the man in the street was sure this number was excessive. He remembered, doubtless, that France had done very well with 40,000 civil servants in Balzac's day, when the population of the country was only a fourth smaller than in 1914. Why, then, were twenty times as many needed in the twentieth century? As a matter of fact, the French public service made use of a staff which was, in proportion to population, no larger than the English or the American, especially if it be remembered that over 150,000 public school teachers and several thousand telegraph and telephone employees were among the 900,000 civil servants mentioned.
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- Copyright © American Political Science Association 1928
References
1 The pages that follow are based upon materials gathered and direct observations made by the writer during a two-year sojourn in France (1920–22), and again during the year 1927 as traveling fellow of the Social Science Research Council.
2 Less than 700,000 were on the payroll of the central government.
3 Cf., for interesting comparative data on the size of national civil services in Europe, Le Bulletin de la Statistigue générale de la France, July, 1922.
4 Among these decentralizing or “deconcentrating” measures the most important were the law of 1871 (applying to the départements), and that of 1884, known in France as the “municipal code.”
5 French books and brochures on both of these movements are legion. On regionalism the most complete accounts are Brun, Charles, Le Régionalisme (Paris, 1911)Google Scholar, and Bellet, M., Rapport parlementaire, Chambre des Députes, ann. s. o. 1923, No. 6144Google Scholar. On administrative syndicalism probably the best treatment of the pre-war period is Cahen, Georges, Les Fonctionnaires (Paris, 1911)Google Scholar. There is no satisfactory general account of developments since the war.
6 While this was the nearest French approach to our American spoils system, it was less pervasive and more a matter of seeking and granting family and personal favors than of strict partisanship.
7 Harmignie, P., L'État et ses Agents (Paris, 1911), p. 235Google Scholar, and La Tribune du Fonctionnaire, May and October, 1913.
8 Cf. Renouvin, P., Les Formes du Gouvernement de Guerre (Paris, 1927), pp. 51–92, for an excellent summary of the war-time expansion of state services in FranceGoogle Scholar.
9 L'Europe nouvelle devoted its entire issue of March 26, 1927, to “La Crise des Cadres de la Nation.” In this may be found statistical data on the suffering both of public servants and of administrative efficiency since the war.
10 The writer attended several of these meetings, at one of which dire threats were hurled at “Poincaré and the banker clique who now rule France.”
11 While at the date of writing (February, 1928) this reclasaification plan has not received its final detailed form, it will likely be accepted substantially as reported. Cf. the preliminary report of the Martin Commission, reproduced in La Tribune du Fonctionnaire, June 11, 1927.
12 From data furnished the writer by the secretary-general of the Council of State.
13 Substance of a conversation with M. Beltette, secretary of the Syndicat national des Professeurs de Lycée, Aug. 11, 1927.
14 This data was obtained in part directly from personnel chiefs in the ministerial departments concerned, in part from Marlio, L., “L'Exode des Hauts Fonctionnaires,” in La Revue des deux Mondes, Sept. 15, 1927Google Scholar.
15 Approximately one-eighth of the students in the secondary schools hold state scholarships granted on a competitive basis.
16 Various laws passed since the war reserve certain categories of minor and middle-grade posts to war veterans who are disabled or have served as volunteers.
17 Rapport général of M. Henri Chéron on the 1928 budget as summarized in La Tribune du Fonctionnaire, Jan. 7, 1928.
18 Decree of Sept. 10, 1926.
19 Huddleston, S., France (London, 1926), p. 587Google Scholar.
20 Cf., especially, for careful discussions of the current aspects of administrative reform, Puget, H., “Un Programme de Réformes et d'Economies,” Revue des Sciences politiques, April-June, 1924Google Scholar, and Flandin, P., “La Réforme administrative,” Revue de Paris, June 1, 1927Google Scholar.
21 Decree of Nov. 5,1926.
22 The author has in preparation a series of monographs analyzing the technical aspects (recruitment, promotion, discipline, salary standardization, etc.) of French personnel policy. Man. Ed.
23 The growing use of advisory functionalism in French administration is most suggestive. It will be treated in a second article in a later issue of the Review.
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