1
ECPR General Conference Bordeaux 4-7 september 2013
Panel: The Territorialisation of Interest Representation
Amandine Brizio, Centre Emile Durkheim
[email protected]
Working paper, please do not quote
Rescaling interest representation in regional policy making : the case
of the Conseils Economiques, Sociaux et Environnementaux
Régionaux
The rescaling of interest groups at the regional level in France, and the multiple
strategies and uses of such groups regarding the relatively new-born regional institution have
often been documented by studying their organizational features, or the extension of territorial
social dialogue. Yet the Economic, Social and Environmental Regional Councils (Conseils
Economiques, Sociaux et Environnementaux Régionaux, or CESER) have been materializing
the involvement of social partners and organized civil society in the regional policy-making
process for over four decades. The CESER resulted from the divorce between electoral and
socio-professional representation, generated by the decentralization reform. Previously
associated with partisan representation in the early forms of Regional assemblies, interest
representation has ever since remained (although only in a consultative fashion) part of the
regional institution.
Such assemblies occupy a unique position as organized mediation arenas between
political and socio-economic institutional spheres where interdependences consolidate,
conflicts crystallize, collective bargaining rules are negotiated, and therefore they offer
insights into the impact of interest territorialisation on the regional policy making process.
This working paper intends to present and analyze data on the evolving nature of
organized interests participation to the definition of regional policies within the CESERs, on
the basis of an ongoing thesis. It combines longitudinal data collected in Aquitaine, regarding
the nomination process and seats allocation dynamics, with interviews of current and former
members of the CESER, and observations of public sessions and commission meetings of the
current assembly, in order to underline how different degrees and organizational forms of
interest territorialisation impact the ability and the modalities of political participation within
the CESER.
The analysis of over four decades of interest representation at the regional level of
government allows us to address two key questions : first, it shows the evolving nature of
what has and has not been considered as a legitimate organized interest and a viable
interlocutor for public actors from the early years of regional government. Second, it raises
2
the issue of whether such an institution has been invested by the organized interests
interest it is
designed to represent,, and to what extend the
t differential modalities and levels of involvement
and participation observed in the current assembly can be accounted for by the
territorialisation of organized interests.
Historical trajectory of interest representation
representation at the regional level
Before addressing the issue of whether or not the interest groups represented in the
CESER have undergone some extend of territorialisation, and how this affect the internal
workings of the assembly, we must first pay closer
closer attention to which organization have been
allocated seats in the Economic and Social councils. Indeed, the formal association of interest
representatives to the regional level of government is not a new phenomenon, and could even
be considered as anterior
ior to the decentralization process in France and the creation of the
Région as an institution. Yet the number and even the nature of the interest groups nominated
in these assemblies have significantly evolved from the early versions of regional interest
consultation, and should undergo yet another modification with the next renewal of the
assembly in October 2013.
Three major phases can be distinguished in the institutionalization of interest
representation at the regional level : first, organized interests have constituted earliest form of
regional power and representation in centralized France. The emergence of a decentralized
institution has opened a second era of limited influence for interest representation. It implied
a significant adaptation to the growing competencies of the new regional power, and signaled
the divorce between interest representation and directly elected politicians in the Conseil
Régional. By the end of the 80s1, the potentially adversarial relationship between the
th Conseil
Régional on the one hand, and the Economic and Social Council on the other, reached a form
of statu quo and stabilized the practices of consultation within the regional policy-making
policy
process. Without going into extensive details regarding the changes
changes in the competencies and
the balance of power between traditional partisan representation and interest representation
introduced by the 1982 decentralization reform, the focus will be here on the evolutions of the
composition of socio-professio
professional assemblies. They
hey evolved from a structure based on
economic sectors to a tripartite format between public authorities and social partners,
including a growing number of organizations from the civil society.
1 Palard , Jacques ; Moquay , Patrick , La société régionale en dialogue : le Conseil économique et
social régional Aquitaine : 1974-1989
1974
éditions Confluences impr. 2009
3
Regional government and regional interest representation : an old
relationship
The formalized and permanent association of representatives from organized interests
at the regional level can be traced back to the very early developments of a regional
government in France. Although it has taken different institutional forms, have had multiple
denominations and evolving competencies, the association of interest groups to the policymaking process has been a specificity of regional administrations in France since 1919.
The so-called “Régions Clementel” (from the Minister who promoted their creation),
which can be identified as the first significant attempt to create a regional level of government,
rested almost exclusively on interest representation. The 5th of April 1919 decree instituted
seventeen Regional Economic groups (Groupements Economiques Régionaux), gathering
representatives from the Chambers of Commerce with public services officials under the
authority of a Regional Committee. Without financial resources or legal existence, the
Regional Committee’s objectives remained limited, if not undefined, in the expectation of
legal clarification of their competencies and organizational modalities. The 14th of June 1925
decree finally completed the process by establishing the 19 unions of Chambers of Commerce
as a legal entity2 under the name of “Economic Regions”, dedicated to play a consultative role
in the trade and industry policies. During the war, the Vichy regime pursued the
institutionalization of interest consultation at the regional level. In spite of the limited legal
continuity and the even more unstable implementation given the specific context, the 19th of
April 1941 legislative act has been considered as prolonging the Régions Clémentel 3 , by
instituting 19 regional Préfets and planning a consultative assembly representing “spiritual,
moral, intellectual and economical forces” in charge of giving authorized advices to the public
authorities. Delaire demonstrates how the “coordinated economy” of the Vichy Regime
paradoxically prefigures the 5th Republic “planification”4 and institutionalized relationships
with economic interests.
After 1945, the development of economic and territorial planning created the
conditions for a renewed interest in regional government. In 1954, the Economic Expansion
Committees were created in a consultative capacity in order to promote the economic
development of their respective regions. A series of decrees followed, progressively
organizing a regional government without decentralized competencies 5 . Interest groups
remain closely associated to the regional administration with the creation of the Regional
Economic Development Commission (Commission de Développement Économique Régionale,
ou CoDER) on the 14th of March 1964. They associated local politicians (both Mayors and
sub-regional elected officials) with interest groups representatives in one single assembly, in
charge of the regional policy-making process.
2
Etablissement publics régionaux
Palard , Jacques ; Moquay , Patrick , La société régionale en dialogue : le Conseil économique et
social régional Aquitaine : 1974-1989 éditions Confluences impr. 2009p 18
4
Delaire, Y, Le Conseil Economique et Social d'Auvergne (1974-1981), Université Clermot-Ferrand I,
1982, p170
5 Gohin (O), “Les Comités économiques et sociaux régionaux”, revue du droit public et de la science
politique en France et à l'étranger, 1988/2, p499
3
4
The decentralization reform and the separation of political and interest
representation
The creation in 1973 of the Consultative Economic and Social Councils (Conseils
Consultatifs Economiques et Sociaux or CCES) marked a turning point in the joint
development of an autonomous level of regional government and the institutionalization of
interest representation. It instituted the first regional assembly exclusively composed of
interest representatives, symmetrically associated with a political assembly in order to form
the regional government. It is a direct consequence of the first attempt at a decentralization
reform creating a regional political entity in its own right, which officially dissociates a
political representation based on election and partisan cleavages from interest representation
based on internal designation of its representatives within the interest groups themselves. The
5th of July 1972 reform institutes the Regional Public Establishments and an independent
political assembly. The first socio-professional assembly, implemented in 1974, instituted a
regional bicameralism where both assemblies where consulted by the Préfet de Région in the
decision-making process.
However, the major change in interest representation occurred after the
decentralization reform of 1982. The CCES competencies and their participation to the
regional policy process are significantly diminished by the 2nd of march and 11th of march
1982 decrees regarding the powers and attribution of these assemblies. It is the end of the
regional bicameralism and marks the domination of the political assembly over the decisionmaking process, maintaining interest representation in a consultative position submitted to the
Conseil Régional in terms of resources, control over the political agenda and ultimately over
the impact of its consultative advices and reports6. The 1986 reform allowing the political
assembly to be directly elected reinforced the asymmetry created by the decentralization
between the two previously equal assemblies.
More importantly, the structure of the assembly is significantly modified by the 1982
decrees : interest groups are now divided between three components or “colleges”. The first
sector gathers representatives mandated by employers organizations, both from the interprofessional structures, (from the consular chambers to the UPA and CGPME ), as well as
from the different sectors of economic activity (in other words the professional branches). The
second sector is dedicated to the five trade-unions legally considered as representative nationwide, and a strict equality in the number of seats between these two sectors is established.
Finally, the third college gathers all interest groups from a broad definition of civil society
(the social dimension of the CCES), and reduces the number of individuals appointed without
any sort of representative mandate or group affiliation as “qualified personalities” .
Ever since the two major 1973 and 1982 reforms, a series of legislations and decrees
have provided a more precise legal framework organizing the relations between the Conseil
6
Guillaume Gourgues, Le consensus participatif. Les politiques de la démocratie dans quatre régions
françaises, Thèse soutenue le 7 décembre 2010 sous la direction d’Alain Faure, Sciences Politiques
5
Régional and the consultative economic and social assembly. This was mostly an issue of
legal clarification defining the terms of the dialogue between the consultative and the political
assembly, which has essentially confirmed the domination of the latter over interest
representation. From 1986 to the latest reform integrating the environmental dimension to the
socio-economic assembly, the legislator has intended to create an asymmetrical, yet stabilized
cooperation between the two regional assemblies. Regarding the definition of which interest
group may be represented at the regional level, the 12th of May 1989 decree instituted a small
increase in the number of seats, without affecting the balance between the three sectors. The
Administration Territoriale de la République law of 1992 mainly modified the name of the
socio-professional assembly, from Economic and Social Committees to Councils.
The last major legislative evolution was introduced by the 12th of July 2010 reform,
changing once again the denomination of the CES : as decided during the national
consultation over environmental issues (Grenelle de l’Environnement), the socio-economic
assemblies were to reflect a broader definition of civil society and organized interests by
integrating interest groups dedicated to environmental issues. This has mostly been attributed
to the very active lobbyism of the environmental federation France Nature Environnement
during the national consultation, in an explicit effort to obtain seats and institutional positions
at every level of government. The 27th of January decree regarding the composition of the
newly born CESER decided another increase in the number of seats, in order to allow the
integration of the new environmental interests into the third college without generating a
reduction in the seats allocated to other interest groups.
The role of the regional institution in structuring interest groups :
Studying the successive contents of the assemblies dedicated to provide representation
for interest groups at the regional level offers the opportunity to better understand how public
authorities have attempted to define and select legitimate interlocutors for public deciders at
the regional level within the socio-professional sphere. After retracing the history of interest
representation in its multiple institutional forms at the regional level, we intend here to
analyze longitudinal data regarding seat allocation in Aquitaine since 1964, coupled with a
study of individual nominations. Our results, based on an ongoing research on the CESER
Aquitaine, tend to show that although the assemblies dedicated to interest representation in
the French Régions have become increasingly inclusive of a wide range of interests, they
remain strongly influenced by the duality between trade-unions and employer’s organization,
and marked by a very low turnover both at the level of the organizations and of their
individual representatives.
6
Many of the analysis of professional relations in France7, whether from a macro or a
sector-based perspective, have questioned the conditions of emergence and structure of
interest groups. Michel Offerlé in his sociology of interest groups in France 8, has underlined
the impact of State intervention over the formation and the organization of collective interest :
the official recognition of a group as a legitimate interlocutor for public deciders, the status
associated with such recognition and the access to the decision making-process and financial
subsidies, are all key factors in the institutionalization dynamics of interest groups. Following
Hayward and Watson’s9 analysis of the mutual structural effects of negotiation arenas such as
the national Economic and Social Council or the Commissariat au Plan over interest groups,
the CESER can equally be regarded as an institution impacting the relations between
conflicting interests and affecting the structure of the groups. It provides an intermediation
arena between social and political spheres, and generates an ensemble of rules, norms and
processes for interest aggregation and conflict resolution. The competition for seat allocation
between interest groups, and the successive definitions of interest representation materialize
the mutual structural effects of the CESER over interest groups at the regional level. While, as
a merely consultative assembly, it might have a very limited impact on the policy-making
process, it has remained relevant to social partners and interest groups in general as a provider
of legitimacy.
The constant renegotiation of the composition of the CESER:
The principles currently presiding the organization and the composition of the CESER
can be outlined as follows, considering that depending on the Regions, there can be from 40
to 120 seats : 35 % of them have been nominated by employers organizations and
independent activities (consular institutions, employers unions, agricultural organizations,
self-employed activities); 35% are designated by the trade-unions (mostly from the five
structures formerly considered by law as representative trade-unions, that is to say the CGT,
CFDT, FO, CFTC, CGC and UNSA-FEN), 25% emanate from other type of collective
interest (this last component being the materialization of the “social” dimension in opposition
to the “economic” dimension embodied by the social partners of the two other sectors). In
addition to these three colleges, which structure the internal workings of the assembly, the
other 5% is composed of qualified personalities whose individual achievements or expertise is
considered of value to a more complete representation of the regional civil society, chosen by
the Préfet de Région (the centralized State authority at the regional level). The great majority
7
See for instance Verdier and Méhaut in Duclos, Groux et Mériaux (dir.), Les nouvelles dimensions du
politique. Relations professionnelles et régulations sociales Paris, LGDJ, coll. « Droit et Société »,
2009, or Jobert (A) in “The territorial social dialogue: challenges and prospects for the trade unions”,
Transfer: European Review of Labour and Research, 2005, 11: 589
8
Michel OFFERLE, Sociologie des groupes d’intérêts, Paris, Montchrétien, 1998
In Charlotte Halpern, Concertation/Délibération/Négociation in Laurie Boussaguet, Sophie Jacquot,
Pauline Ravinet , Dictionnaire des politiques publiques, Paris, Presses de SciencesPo, 2011, p155-159
9
7
of members are either elected or designated within the interest group they represent in the
CESER, although external arbitration from the Préfet can prove necessary in the case of single
seats shared by several distinct interest groups, when they fail to reach an agreement on the
nomination.
Those general principles apply to all CESER in France, but the actual attribution of
seats within the three sectors is the responsibility of the Préfet de Région, which issues
secondary legislation with the final composition of the assembly. Each interest groups then
communicates the names of its representatives, which are subsequently officially nominated
by the Préfet. Such a process does not formally involve the Président de Région, head of the
regional executive power, nor the CESER Presidency and the CESER permanent
administration, although they can be consulted by the prefectoral services and may play an
informal but crucial part in the selection of qualified personalities. The CESER composition is
therefore the result of a complex process with multiple actors strongly constrained by legal
provisions, which allows very little space for change since it requires secondary legislation
from the national assembly or a judiciary decision from the administrative jurisdiction to
modify the equilibriums.
Longitudinal analysis of compositions in the CESER Aquitaine :
The numerous evolutions that affected the composition of the CESER require
information beyond the mere content of national legislation. In order to provide a full picture
of the successive definitions of what constitutes a legitimate interest group in the regional
arena, and therefore study the impact of the multiple reforms of the CESER over interest
groups, one must pay closer attention to the seat allocations and the assembly renewal rates.
Indeed, some of the reformed mentioned earlier have been mostly cosmetic, and have had a
superficial effect on the actual organizations represented and on the individuals belonging the
assembly. The numerous changes in the denomination of the assembly, or the internal
reorganization of its components from economic sector to class cleavages, should not lead to
underestimate how resistant to change the CES have been in their composition. We will base
our argument on the case of the Aquitaine region, and analyze longitudinal data regarding seat
allocation in Aquitaine since 1964, coupled with a study of individual nominations. The data
up to 1991 has been collected and interpreted by P. Debaere in a previous study10. We have
complemented this preliminary work with additional information and classification. As we
have showed previously, the 1964 CoDER was composed, although not exclusively, of
representatives of interest groups. We have chosen to begin the longitudinal analysis with this
particular form of interest representation both for practical reasons of data availability and in
order to assess the impact of the shift from a composition based on economic sectors to one
divided into three colleges.
10
Debaere, P., Esquisse d’identification des conseillers economiques et sociaux aquitains, mémoire
pour le DEA de Sciences politiques, CERVL, 1997
8
The first significant evolution in the composition of the CESER in Aquitaine has been
a consistent increase in the number of seats, from 35 in the 1964 CoDER to 119 in the current
CESER. This increase has been matched by the increasing number of different interest groups
obtaining a seat in the successive institutional versions.
140
120
100
80
number of seats
60
40
number of interest
groups represented
20
0
The effects of the 1982 reform in composition, shifting from economic sector to
colleges and materializing the presence of non social partners in the assembly, proved to be
relatively minimal. From 43 to 49 different interest groups represented, it has been a
significant reform in terms of internal dynamics within the assembly, but seems to have left
the composition almost unaffected. The 1973 reform on the other hand, instituting a separate
assembly for interest groups on an equal basis with the political assembly, has had a deeper
impact on the composition of interest representation : the number of distinct organizations
represented in the newly born CCES is roughly twice as important as in the CoDER. More
generally, one should note that both employers organizations and trade unions have remained
the same since the 60s, and that the global increase in the number of interest groups
represented has mainly impacted the third college of representatives. Finally, it should be
underlined that with rare exceptions, once an interest group has been awarded seats in the
CES, it remains a part of the assembly regardless of the evolution of its influence and
membership. Very few groups have been suppressed from the original 1964 composition, and
even the recent suppression of the legally established representativeness of the five tradeunions has not fundamentally affected seat allocation within the second college.
The study of the respective repartition of the assembly’s seats between the groups
underlines the remaining influence of social partners, in spite of the creation of the third
college of representatives dedicated to civil society. Indeed, only employers and trade unions
have consistently been awarded more than two seats per interest group (up to 13 in the case of
the CGT, which constitutes the largest group of the 2007 assembly). The ability for an
interest group represented in the CESER to gather a sufficient number of seats is crucial to
their influence within the assembly : while the vast majority of interests struggle to develop
voting discipline and to create alliances and looser forms of association in order to gain
9
influence over the agenda, social partners have been able to occupy arbitration positions in the
elections of the President of the CESER, and to establish voting discipline (mostly
exemplified by the coordinated abstentions of the trade unions and the employers
representatives over a report which does not meet their expectations).
2007-2013 composition
35
number of interest groups
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
shared seat
between two or
more interest
groups
single seat per
interest group
two seats per
interest group
more than two
seats per
interest group
employers college
3
20
2
4
trade unions college
0
1
3
4
civil society college
8
30
4
0
This relatively strong inertia in spite of numerous reforms can also be observed from a
longitudinal analysis of individual mandates. The following graphic illustrates the levels of
turnover in the representatives nominated in the assembly.
Ranking of individual mandates per assembly
100%
80%
60%
40%
20%
0%
1964-1970 1970-1973 1973-1979 1979-1982 1982-1989 1989-1995 1995-2001 2001-2007 2007-2013
primo-entrants début de législature
2 mandats
3 mandats
4 mandats
5 mandats
6 mandats et plus
10
Since 1964, socio-professional assemblies have been renewed 8 times : our analysis
rests on the prefectoral individual nominations published at the time of assembly renewals,
and on the nominations occurring between the completion of the 6 year mandate when a
representative is unable to complete its term. There can be up to 30% of nominations
occurring outside of the official renewal dates of the assemblies. The figure above highlights
that at every installment excepting the one in 1964, (considered as the very first nomination
for every individual representative), the proportion of newly appointed representatives has
been relatively low. The atypical cohorts of 1970 and 1973 can be accounted for by the
abnormally short mandate between the last CoDER and the first CCES. Moreover, a smaller
group of individual representatives, regardless of the interest group which nominated them,
can be distinguished in the successive compositions after 1982 : for over two decades,
approximately 10% of the members of the CES have been nominated more than five times.
This extreme longevity of the mandates implies that in the 2007 assembly, three
representatives had first been nominated in 1973 and one of them in 1964. The vast majority
of CES members have been nominated for two or three mandates, and the relatively stable
proportion of renewed nominations allow for the transmission of knowledge and experience
between members, giving space to the development of strong socializations practices among
the representatives of heterogeneous interest groups, and allowing for shared norms and
cultures to develop within the assembly.
Interest representation without regional interests?
The discussion of structural effects generated by the CESER over regional interest
leads to question the reciprocity of the phenomenon : while public authorities shape the
formation and the organization of interest groups with a regional arena of negotiation, the
groups characteristics impact the way they use and invest this very arena. In other words, it
raises the issue of whether such an institution has been invested by the organized interests it is
designed to represent, or has remained an empty shell, and to what extend the differential
modalities and levels of involvement observed in the current assembly can be accounted for
by the territorialisation of organized interests. The study of conflict and actors interactions
within the assembly involves taking into account the external resources available to interest
representatives in their organization, and the different strategies of involvement of the
Regional institution.
In spite of a very strong bias towards consensual or unanimous votes, conflict is not
absent from the CESER : some votes over expert reports can prove to generate opposition,
mostly manifested by a big number of abstentions, and although they have vague and moving
delimitations, majorities do exist in the assembly. While they have not the consistency and
stability of political majorities, those conflicting and even adversarial currents (for lack of a
better word) have created informal groups within the CESER. They become more apparent
11
during crucial votes such as the election of the President of the assembly, where competition
for symbolic or material resources and control over the assembly’s agenda exacerbates the
otherwise discrete oppositions between the groups. The observation of such conflicting
interactions have revealed how extremely heterogeneous participation can be depending on
the interest group represented. The results presented here are intermediaries results based on
qualitative observations and semi-directive interviews conducted with 40 members of the
CESER Aquitaine. We intend to provide an up-to-date description of the impact of
differential levels of territorialization over the ability to occupy positions of power within the
CESER, based on the initial depiction of Jacques Palard et Patrick Moquay in a study
concluded in 198911.
It seems that the different degrees and organizational forms of interest territorialisation
strongly impact the ability and the modalities of political participation within the CESER. As
we have underlined previously, the portrayal of a “Region without regionalism” might prove
excessive given the very early participation of some interest groups to the development of
regional government. Nevertheless, it appears that the ability of the respective interest groups
to exert power within the CESER is related to their degree of regionalization. In Palard and
Moquay’s words, there is a correlation between the success of some interest groups in
controlling the assembly’s agenda, occupying power positions and influencing key votes in
the assembly, and “the ability they have demonstrated in creating a regional structure adapted
to the institutional game”12. One could distinguish between one the one hand, the interest
groups that have developed regional structures and strategies in the early years of the
decentralization process (which are mainly the agricultural organizations and to a lesser extent
the second largest trade union, the CDFT), and on the other those who have been more
indifferent to the regionalization process. Among those, some have successfully been affected
by the increasing territorialisation of social dialogue and public consultation, and others have
been unable to create viable regional structures (the vast majority of associations from the
civil society which do not belong to a strong national federation).
The first college offers a very evocative example of the impact of interest
territorialisation over the influence obtained in the CESER. Indeed, agricultural organizations
have proved to be extremely successful in gaining influence within the CESER, beyond their
respective number of seats. Two of the CES Presidents have been selected among the
Chambers of Agriculture, Jacques Castaing and Michel Cazalé, the latter staying in office for
over two decades. This strongly contrasts with the employers organizations situation within
the CESER : while they remain influential thanks to the numerous seats they occupy in the
CESER, employers organizations have been characterized by strong divisions between the
chambers of commerce and the chambers of métiers, and between representatives of large
firms versus the smaller ones, more dependent upon regional context. Their involvement in
the CESER and their ability to exert influence over important votes or agenda setting merely
matches the agricultural influence, in spite of their numerical superiority. The success of the
11
Palard , Jacques ; Moquay , Patrick , La société régionale en dialogue : le Conseil économique et
social régional Aquitaine : 1974-1989 : l'innovation apprivoisée éditions Confluences impr. 2009
12
Ibid, p 90
12
agricultural dimension has been attributed by Palard and Moquay to their early involvement in
the decentralization process and to the resulting proximity of agricultural representation with
the regional executive. Agricultural interest groups haveindeed perceived the relevance of the
regional level of government in the early stages of its institutionalization : the creation in 1969
of the first regional Chamber of Agricultures points to a coordinated strategy to gain access to
regional deciders and to the financial opportunities available with the creation of a new level
of government. Nay has demonstrated the crucial impact of agricultural involvement in the
institutionalization of the Region 13 , which has been instrumental in the early years in
Aquitaine. As a result, agricultural interests in Aquitaine have always enjoyed a very strong
and direct relationship with the regional executive power, and the control they have been able
to exert in the CESER is a direct consequence of such proximity. It is worth mentioning that
the former director of the CESER administration, although he was never mandated as an
interest representative, was an influential and well respected figure of the agricultural lobby.
He enjoys a close relationship with the current President de Région Alain Rousset from the
shared history during the early struggles of the decentralized Region. Ever since he retired
from the CESER, he has been nominated as special advisor to the Président de Région. The
Regional Chamber of Agriculture has managed to coordinate and lead all agricultural interest
groups, and was successful in arbitrating potential conflict between departmental chambers or
amongst the unions within its regional organization. It has become the single interlocutor of
public deciders regarding agricultural interests, and as such has been able to implement a
coordinated strategy to maximize the agricultural influence within the CESER.
Trade-union have been characterized by a general reluctance to play regional politics,
a fact reinforced by the absence of regional competencies in terms of social dialogue. The five
major unions have had to create regional structures but they have often remained secondary
arenas compared to the departmental organizations in both the inter professional and the
economic sector-based organizations. The recent development of some form of regional social
dialogue, and the addition of the formation and vocational training to the competencies of the
French Régions have nonetheless impacted the strategies of the unions towards the regional
institution and the CESER. While Palard and Moquay oppose the CFDT’s strategy and
involvement in the regional government to the other four unions in the late 80s, today’s union
involvement in the CESER has undergone significant and emblematic changes. The CFDT
has indeed been the first union to create a regional level of organization in 1975, which was
not an empty shell, and whose members were represented in the national confederation
instead of departmental militants. Yet the depiction of the CGT as a group reluctant to
participate to the regional policy-making process, using the CESER merely as a public tribune
to voice opposition and interest representation without get involved in the negotiations and
aggregation of interest must be reviewed in the light of recent developments14. The evolution
in the CGT strategy can be best illustrated by the fact that the CESER’s current President is a
delegate from the CGT : many members of the CESER have mentioned that in the late 80s
13
Nay, O. (1997). La région une institution. La représentation le pouvoir et la règle dans l’espace
régional (p. 377). Paris: L’harmattan
14
Palard , Jacques ; Moquay , Patrick , La société régionale en dialogue : le Conseil économique et
social régional Aquitaine : 1974-1989 : l'innovation apprivoisée éditions Confluences impr. 2009, p
94-95
13
and 90s, one of the CESER Vice-presidents from the CGT has proved instrumental in
promoting a less adversarial use of the institution. The progressive integration of the CGT to
the regional assembly has culminated with the election of Luc Paboeuf as President of the
assembly, gaining votes against former President Gargou from the employers organizations
within the first college.
In the third college dedicated to interest groups from civil society, the extreme
diversity of organizations, the strong fragmentation resulting from the attribution to a single
seat to the vast majority of interest groups, and the instability of the individual nominations
due to shared seats between two interest groups, have significantly impeded any form of
group or current to exert lasting leadership. Although the election as president of Louis
Darmanté has proven that it was possible to generate vote discipline in the third college, the
successive attempts at forming a larger group under the leadership of non-confessional youth
organizations, or later around the Chambres Régionales de l’Economie Sociale et Solidaire
have been unsuccessful. Most of the groups in the third college have been using the CESER
both as a tribune and as an access point to political personnel and a source of information over
the regional policy-making. The recent addition of environmental interest groups could have
been an opportunity to federate some of the groups around the five new organizations focused
on environmental issues. Although the reform in the composition is too recent to have any
reliable perspective, it seems that none of the groups has yet developed the regional
organization and coordinated regional strategy necessary to gain influence within the CESER.