"French provinces groan over disappearing car number plates"
PARIS (AFP) — A rebellion is brewing in the
French provinces against government plans to introduce new EU-style car
registration plates and scrap the country's much-loved system of "departmental"
numbers.
For as long as anyone can remember vehicles in
France have been identified by a two-digit figure denoting their department --
or "county" -- of origin, ranging from 01 for Ain near Lyon to 95 for Val d'Oise
north of Paris.
Generations of children have whiled away
boring motorway journeys ticking off the lists of numbers, and for many drivers
the plate is worn as a mark of local pride.
But under changes to come in next January, all
new French vehicles will be fitted with European "AA-123-AA" format
registrations. These will gradually be extended to second-hand cars, and by 2014
the traditional plates should have all but disappeared from the roads.
The government says the measure makes economic
and administrative sense. It will be cheaper to run and in any case the EU
requires it. Ministers also note that drivers have the option on buying a car of
inserting a regional symbol or figure at one end of the plate.
But opponents say that in practice few will
make the effort to retain the time-honoured numbers, and in parts of the country
campaigns have been launched to preserve what is seen as essential component of
regional identity.
Leading the fight is France's northernmost
department of Pas-de-Calais, whose elected Assembly has spent 24,000 euros
(35,000 dollars) on posters and stickers bearing the slogan "62 -- C'est Nous!"
(62 - It's Us!).
"At the campsite, at the ski-resort, in London
or Berlin, the Ch'ti (northerner) gets his bearings from car registration
plates. What pleasure when far from home to find a 'compatriot'," according to
the campaign literature.
"This number is part of our heritage," said
Assembly president Dominique Dupilet. "We're always on the look-out for other
62s. Think of all the chance encounters there have been, all the friendships
that have been made. People have even gotten married thanks to registration
plates!"
Another department with a strong sense of self
is Vendee on the Atlantic coast, scene of a bloodily-repressed
counter-revolution in the 1790s and now the fief of anti-European nationalist
leader Philippe de Villiers.
"We have asked Vendeans what they think and 93
percent want to keep the 85 on their registration plates," said de Villiers, who
is the department's Assembly president as well as leader of the Movement For
France (MPF) party.
"This is an absurd act of standardisation.
Everything that has local roots, everything that gives people a sense of where
they come from is being mutilated. I believe departmental identities form part
of the great richness of France," he said.
Other departments which have taken up the
struggle are Gironde in the southwest, where the Assembly has voted to make it
compulsory for new plates to continue to bear the number 33, and Aude (11) in
the Pyrenean foothills which has proud memories of the 12th-century Cathar
religious movement, ruthlessly crushed by Paris.
For the people of Ardeche in the Massif
Central, the number 7 has long-been regarded as a lucky talisman.
"The 7 is part of our lives. If there wasn't
any difference between we Ardechois and the 26-ers from the Drome next door, we
wouldn't have any more friendly slanging-matches on the roads," joked Pascal
Terrasse, president of the Ardeche Assembly.
The change comes at a sensitive time for
France's 100 departments, which have formed a central part of France's
administration since 1790 but are now in danger of being eclipsed by the 26
larger "regions", the primary tier of regional government which were created in
the 1980s.
An official study to be presented to President
Nicolas Sarkozy recommends the abolition of the department as an administrative
unit on the grounds that it is expensive, superfluous and outdated, the French
press reported this week.
According to the report's author, economist
Jacques Attali, the department has worked well for two centuries but is now
being squeezed into irrelevance.
On the larger European scale, the regions --
comprising typically half a dozen departments -- are increasingly important,
while at the grass-roots level groups of "communes" (towns and villages) are
being created to represent local needs.
Departmental Assemblies have limited powers
over education, welfare and road-building. Any attempt to reform them out of
existence will be strongly resisted by the 100 Assembly presidents, many of whom
are also members of parliament in Paris.
Source: [AFP]
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