L’étrange destin d’une institution « abandonnée » : les conseils d’arrondissement
Abstract
As part of the territorial reorganization initiated under the Consulate, the law of 28 Pluviôse year VIII created the arrondissement, an intermediate administrative district between the department and the municipality, headed by a sub-prefect with whom sat a deliberative assembly, the arrondissement council. Although the arrondissement still exists today, its assembly disappeared after the law of 12 October 1940, which only suspended its sessions. If no text expressly suppressed the arrondissement councils, these assemblies, despite their limited activities concerned with local interests, were contested from the moment they were created, considered useless and insignificant, and ignored in the best cases. These assemblies disappeared with general indifference, because there was no room between the municipalities and the departments for an administrative district and not for a local authority with an elected assembly which could have challenge both the existence of thousands of municipalities and the authority of the departments, which continued to assert themselves as an essential collective body throughout the 19th and 20th centuries.
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