On June 20 and 27, voters will be asked to renew their regional assemblies. On the same day, the departmental election will also take place, which has so far been scarcely discussed and little publicized, although it is a level of daily proximity for citizens. The regional press is currently addressing it very timidly.
Created in 1790 following the abolition of privileges, the Departments (101 to date) are multiple divisions of the country, whose names have often been chosen based on geography and hydrography. With few exceptions, they have hardly changed since. Except in the exercise of executive power held by Prefects and transferred to the Presidents of general councils (recently renamed departmental councils) thanks to the Decentralization Laws of March 1982.*
However, like other elections, the departmental elections are threatened by abstention and do not escape the increasingly apparent disinterest of the French in the polls.
In the face of a fragmented opinion, it is indeed on the ground that the candidates for the departmental elections will be distinguished, and it is indeed there that democracy will need to be reconquered, to reduce the crisis of representation. The 2054 cantons, though redrawn in 2014, are best suited to relay to the central government the socio-economic and demographic realities, but also to balance provincial popular representation against the latter.
Urban, rural, or from both environments, the 4108 departmental councilors will benefit from a six-year mandate. A period that seems long and with which politics should reconnect, in a world increasingly instantaneous and fleeting. A happy paradox of our society, this old institution that is the Department has withstood numerous attempts at abolition.
Because deep down, even if they shun the polls, the French remain attached to their identity. And what if, ultimately, the key to this election lay in the candidates’ ability to make them prouder of the “small country” where they live? The critics of rurality or metropolises would undoubtedly provide a completely different anthem for this campaign, as history requires.
