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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 29 September 2022
The State. This concept is impossible to avoid in France because the country built itself on (or around) this idea from the nineteenth century. Although the ‘State’ was initially ignored by the Revolution (which referred to the idea of the ‘sovereign nation’), the Revolution marked the beginning of the French administration which has continued to develop ever since. However, the administration as a remedy for the instability resulting from 1789, was a legal tool which changed with the regimes. An intellectual object was therefore necessary to support it and to guarantee its continuity and stability. This is where the interest in the State lies, if only in its etymological sense.
© Nicolas Séébold 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the International Association of Law Libraries. This article contains remarks the author made at the Annual Course of the International Association of Law Libraries 39th Annual Course on International Law and Legal Information: The Triptych: National, European and International Law, The French Way, Toulouse, France, October 4 to October 7 2021. The author would like to thank the organizers of this conference for inviting him to speak about the State. He also thanks his thesis advisor, Aurore Gaillet, for providing this opportunity of continuing the study she began earlier. Certainly, offering the younger members of the University the opportunity to think collectively with their teachers illustrates one of its strengths.
2 G. Bigot, L'Administration française. Politique, droit et société, Tome 1 [1789–1870], 2 eedn, Paris, LexisNexis, coll. “Manuel”, 2013, p. 2.
3 Pellet, A., “The activity of the arbitration commission of the European conference for peace in Yugoslavia” in Annuaire français de droit international, vol. 38, 1992, p. 227CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
4 G. Bigot, op. cit. Preface, p. xi.
5 O. Beaud, La Puissance de l'Etat, Paris, PUF, coll. “Leviathan”, 2018, p. 11.
6 By “disinterest” we mean a detachment from the very concept of the State. This being the case, and as Pierre Rosanvallon is surprised to note, “the very small number of works devoted to the history of the French state contrasts singularly with the vigour of the judgements that are expressed about it”, cf. P. Rosanvallon, L'État en France de 1789 à nos jours, Paris, Seuil, coll. “L'Univers Historique”, 1990, p. 9.
7 This is recalled by Michel Troper, who cites the authors Janet and Prélot in his legal theory of the State: “For decades, the science of politics was confused with the science of the State. In the last years of the nineteenth century, Paul Janet defined political science as “that part of social science which deals with the foundations of the State and the principles of government”, and in the 1950s, Marcel Prélot still supported a conception of political science in France, defined as the science of the State. Cf. M. Troper, Pour une théorie juridique de l'État, PUF, Paris, coll. “Leviathan”, 1994, p. 5.
8 Dauvillier, J., “the origins of the concept of the State and sovereignty on a territory” in Mélanges offerts à Paul Couzinet. Honorary Professor at the Faculty of Law and Economics of Toulouse, Toulouse, University of Social Sciences of Toulouse, 1974, p. 153Google Scholar.
9 F. Saint-Bonnet & Y. Sassier, Histoire des institutions avant 1789, 2nd ed., Paris, Montchrestien, coll. “Domat droit public”, 2006, p. 249.
10 G. Bigot, “The theory of the state in France confronted with its history” in Pouvoirs, n°177 “Que peut l'État”, Paris, Seuil, April 2021, p. 6.
11 Ibid, p. 7. Grégoire Bigot also specifies (same page) that when Cardin Le Bret talks of “preserving the State in its splendour”, he is referring to the body politic.
12 F. Poirat, “State” in Dictionnaire de la culture juridique, dir. D. Allard and S. Rials, Paris, PUF, coll. “Quadrige”, 2014, p. 644.
13 G. Bigot, op. cit., p. 12.
14 Ibid.
15 Ibid.
16 This formula is borrowed from the title of the book by Blanquer, Jean-Michel and Milet, Marc, L'Invention de l'État. Hauriou et Duguit et la naissance du droit public moderne, Paris, Odile Jacob, 2015Google Scholar.
17 G. Bigot, op. cit., p. 8.
18 Ibid.
19 Ibid., p. 10.
20 Ibid.
21 The question of the power of the state will not be dealt with here; the reader may refer to Olivier Beaud's reference book on the subject: La Puissance de l'État, Paris, PUF, coll. “Leviathan”, 2018.
22 R. Carré de Malberg, Contribution à la Théorie générale de l'État, Paris, Dalloz, 2003, p. 69.
23 This is at least the definition given by Julien Laferrière and reported by Georges Vedel in his Manuel élémentaire de droit constitutionnel, Paris, Dalloz, 2012, p. 103.
24 J. Chevallier, L'État, 2nd ed., Paris, Dalloz, “Connaissance du droit” collection, 2011, p. 21.
25 Grégoire Bigot rightly points out that “this legal fiction of personality applied to a collective being was an impossibility for revolutionary constitutionalism: by destroying privileges and bodies, the Constituent Assembly only recognized as a legal person the individual of the Bill of Rights, whom it thereby emancipated. Cf. G. Bigot, op. cit., p. 13.
26 Duguit, L., L'État, le droit objectif et la loi positive, Paris, Dalloz, 2003, p. 242Google Scholar.
27 O. Jouanjan, “Review of ”L'Invention de l'État : Léon Duguit, Maurice Hauriou et la naissance du droit public moderne” by J.-M. Blanquer & M. Milet” in Vingtième Siècle. Revue d'histoire n° 129, January-March 2016, p. 242.
28 It should be noted that it was Professor Léon Michoud who participated in the importation and development of the German theory by publishing his Theory of Moral Personality at the beginning of the nineteenth century.
29 de Malberg, R. Carré, Contribution à la Théorie générale de l'État, Paris, Dalloz, 2003, p. 11Google Scholar.
30 This being the case, it is important to specify that Duguit is not opposed to a legal approach to the State: he only calls for an objective approach based on social observations that rejects the subjectivity implied by the personification of the State.
31 L. Duguit, op. cit. pp. 1–8. See also by the same author, L'État, les gouvernants et les agents, Paris, Dalloz, 2005.
32 M. Hauriou, Principes de droit public, Paris, Dalloz, 2010, p. 691.
33 J. Donnedieu de Vabres, L'État, 9e ed. updated by J.-M. de Forges, Paris, PUF, “Que sais-je?
34 Ibid. at 692.
35 Grégoire Bigot points out that the legal personality of the State became a commonplace in public law in 1918. Duguit even ended up adopting the idea of the personality of the State in his Traité de droit constitutionnel. Cf. L'Administration française. Politique, droit et société, pp. 206 and 208.
36 Santi Romano even puts forward a very clear idea, judging that modern public law “can be defined as the absence of personalization of public power or, more precisely, as the personification of power by the State conceived as a person. An immaterial person, but nevertheless real, an entity that is neither fictitious nor imaginary and that, although lacking a body, manages, thanks to delicate and marvellous legal constructions, to define, assert and impose its own will.” Cf. “The modern State and its crisis”, D. Soldini trans. in Jus politicum, n° 14: La Saisie juridique de l'Empire comme forme politique?, p. 3.
37 H. Kelsen, Pure Theory of Law, C. Eisenmann trans. Paris, LGDJ, “La Pensée juridique”, 1999, p. 304.
38 A. Gaillet, L'Individu contre l'État. Essai sur l'évolution des recours de droit public dans l'Allemagne du xix esiècle, Paris, Dalloz, coll. “Nouvelle Bibliothèque de Thèse”, 2012, p. 314.
39 M. Hauriou, op. cit., p. 73.
40 Quoted by L. Duguit, op. cit., p. 11.
41 L. Duguit, op. cit., p. 12.
42 Ibid. at 122.
43 M. Troper, op. cit., p. 145.
44 C. Torrisi, “State of law” in Dictionnaire d'administration publique, ed. N. Kada & M. Mathieu, Grenoble, PUG, coll. “Droit & Action publique”, 2014, p. 208.
45 See supra. (I-A-3).
46 We find again the notion of “blocks of competence” founded by the French decentralization laws of 1982 and 1983.
47 Article 1 of the Constitution of 4 October 1958 was supplemented thus: “France is an indivisible, secular, democratic and social Republic. It ensures the equality of all citizens before the law, without distinction of origin, race or religion. It respects all beliefs. Its organization is decentralized.” [my emphasis - edla].
48 O. Duhamel, Le Pouvoir politique en France, Paris, Seuil, 1995, p. 264.
49 E. Vallet & S. Lavorel, “Regionalism and Autonomy in Western Europe” in Crise de l'État revanche des sociétés, J. Duchastel & R. Canet (eds.), Outremont [Quebec], Athéna, 2006, p. 108.
50 Quoted by E. Vallet & S. Lavorel, op. cit., p. 99.
51 P. Delvolvé, Le Droit administratif, 7e ed., Paris, Dalloz, coll. “Connaissance du droit”, 2018, p. 12.
52 Constitutional Law No. 98-610 of 20 July 1998 on New Caledonia, JORF, 21 July 1998.
53 Articles 99 to 107 of Organic Law No. 99-209 of 19 March 1999, JORF, 21 March 1999, p. 4197.
54 S. Lavorel, Des manifestations du pluralisme juridique en France. L'émergence d'un droit français des minorités nationales, Grenoble, Université Pierre Mendès-France - Grenoble II, 2007, p. 263.
55 J. Morand-Deviller, P. Bourdon & F. Poulet, Droit administratif, 16e ed, Paris, Lextenso, coll. “Cours”, 2019, pp. 189–190.
56 F. Poirat, op. cit. pp. 642–643.
57 C. Le Bart, “L'État face à l'affirmation de la société civile” in Cahier français, n° 379 : La Place de l'État aujourd'hui, 2014, p. 49.
58 This acronym stands for the initials of the American “digital giants” Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon and Microsoft.
59 D. Martimort, “L'État régulateur : le pouvoir de ne pas toujours pouvoir” in Pouvoirs, n°177 “Que peut l'État”, Paris, Seuil, April 2021, p. 105.
60 J. Chevallier, L'État post-moderne, 4 eéd, LGDJ, coll. “Droit et société”, 2014, p. 43.
61 Ibid.
62 Ibid. Cf. also the article by Olivier Blin and Pierre-Fréderic Charpentier, “Crisis of Europe, crisis of the State? ”Emblematic episodes relating to the “impotence of the state” in the face of the new challenges of a globalized economic space have also validated the postulate of its discredit, particularly in the social domain. We remember, for example, the powerlessness of the French Prime Minister, Lionel Jospin, in the face of the closure of the Renault factory in Vilvoorde, on the outskirts of Brussels, in 1997, and then his famous formula, responding two years later to the loss of thousands of jobs at Michelin, in Clermont-Ferrand: “You can't expect everything from the State. A logical, yet painful admission of the limits of public power in the face of the omnipotence of the large globalized firms.” O. Blin & P.-F. Charpentier, “Crisis of Europe, crisis of the State? Europe and the Crisis, online publication [http://publications.ut-capitole.fr/id/eprint/23734], Université Toulouse I Capitole, 2017, p. 3.
63 J. Chevallier, op. cit., p. 48.
64 É. Laboulaye, L'État et ses limites, 3rd ed.,Paris, Charpentier, 1865, p. 174.
65 A. Gaillet, op. cit., p. 3.
66 P. Birnbaum, “La Force de l'État à la française” in Pouvoirs, n° 177: Que peut l'État, Paris, Seuil, April 2021, p. 17.
67 S. Romano, op. cit., p. 7.
68 S. Lavorel, op. cit. p. 68.
69 One might object that minorities are only minorities in opposition to a majority. This does not seem to me to be correct because it is based on the idea of a whole where a majority on the one hand and several minorities on the other coexist. The concept of “minority” as it is used here considers, on the contrary, that society is only the result of the addition of minorities who make their conception of the law prevail. In other words, there are only minorities that constitute a “majority”, or, more precisely, there are only minorities precisely because there is no majority. The reasoning I am holding here is therefore the only one that can combine the idea of an “indivisible Republic” put forward by Article 1er of the 1958 Constitution with the contradictory recognition of minorities within the French people (see Title xiii of the same Constitution, which refers to the Nouméa Agreement of 5 May 1998). This being the case, if one were to retain a general definition of the concept of minority (and although it considers the existence of a majority), one would refer to the one proposed by Professor Capotorti: “[A] group (…) whose members—nationals of the State—possess, from the ethnic, religious or linguistic point of view, characteristics that differ from those of the rest of the population and even implicitly manifest a feeling of solidarity, with a view to preserving their culture, traditions, religion or language”. See F. Capotorti, Study on the Rights of Persons Belonging to Ethnic, Religious and Linguistic Minorities, New York, United Nations, 24 June 1977, p. 102, quoted by S. Lavorel, op. cit., p. 9.
70 On this point, Brigitte Krulic notes that “the current debates on memorial policies that emphasize singular histories and memories to the detriment of 'national novels' are part of this perspective”. Cf. B. Krulic, “What future for the nation-state?” in Cahier français, n° 379: La Place de l'État aujourd'hui, 2014, pp. 25–26… Moreover, we will invite once again the reading of Sabine Lavorel who writes about what she identifies as “cultural rights”: “(…) if (…) culture is understood as a way of life, a set of values, traditions and beliefs, the cultural right becomes the right of culture, that is to say the 'freedom to develop with others one's cultural belonging'. In this case, the cultural right attributed to the individual only has meaning if it is exercised in community: the individual right is then doubled by a collective right.” See S. Lavorel, op. cit. pp. 348–349.
71 S. Romano, op. cit., p. 8.
72 B. Krulic, op. cit. pp. 25–26.
73 “Whereas the 1983 agreement [which, in the Nainville-les-Roches Declaration of 12 July 1983 signed by the French Government and the flnks, recognizes the existence of a “Kanak people” with an “innate and active right to independence”] was essentially of political interest, the 1998 agreement has a legal force that is all the more binding in that title xiii of the Constitution, resulting from the revision of 20 July 1998, now confers on it a constitutional value.” See S. Lavorel, op. cit. p. 301.
74 S. Romano, L'Ordre juridique, Paris, Dalloz, Coll. “Philosophie du droit”, 1975, pp. 25–27, quoted by S. Lavorel, op. cit., p. 71.
75 Ibid.
76 P. Birnbaum, op. cit., p. 17.
77 P. Rosanvallon, Le Modèle politique français. La société civile contre le jacobinisme de 1789 à nos jours, Paris, Seuil, “L'Univers Historique” collection, p. 434.
78 S. Goyard-Fabre, “L'État du xxe siècle a-t-il été un 'monstre froid' ?” in L'État au xxe siècle, ed. S. Goyard-Fabre, Paris, Librairie philosophique J. Vrin, coll. “Histoire des idées et des doctrines”, 2004, p. 331.