Bureaucracy Gone Mad part 1 and something about museums

Ferry Escapades is mainly concerned with the departments of Brittany and Normandie but also takes in Northern Picardie known as Haute de France the northern coastline which is linked to Dover in Kent by the channel tunnel and by the ferry service which runs from Dover to Calais.

While Britain is made up of counties that are subdivided into boroughs or districts, and parishes or town councils; in France, departments for example Brittany and Normandie are regions divided into departments. Like our counties, the departments are then made up of towns and villages each with a mayor. Most often the larger ones are designated as prefectures accompanied by between 2, 3 or 4 sous (under) prefectures. This peculiar bureaucratic system of the prefecture is both government at the national level and local at the government level. The government situated at a local level is a kind of thermometer monitoring the mood of the provinces, an army of civil servants dotted all over France, but in a separate location, the staff needed for the administration of the department. This is reflected in policing as well with the Gendarme being part of the army, and the civil police employed by the department.

town police right army affiliated gendarme to the left

Even more confusing, and if this isn’t enough administration, alongside the government system the ‘county’ part of the prefecture is in an entirely different building which includes the civil police but the gendarmery have their own separate building. are the department offices equivalent to county hall in the UK. As in Britain, the lowest tier of bureaucracy is occupied by mayor or mayoresses who head up the department’s towns, villages, and hamlets which are sometimes grouped together.

Caen Airport

Most of the principal towns are better served by travel links -train station, motorway, or coach and bus station. Some even have their own airport as does Caen (prefecture du Calvados), Rennes (Ile et Vilaine), or Deauville exclusively for the rich Parisians who need to park their planes to close to the exclusive resort famous for its boardwalk. There is also an airport at Alencon in the department of l’Orne but now services have been extended so that both Rennes and Caen have daily flights to Gatwick airport and a wider range of French or International destinations in Europe.

The prefecture and sous-prefectures tend to have the most amenities such as mediathèque, swimming pool, running track, theatre and most will have a hospital of some kind an important consideration for those with or wanting to buy a second home or the tourist with a family who wants things to do on their holiday. Prefecture towns tend to be wealthier, there more restaurants, spas, art galleries, and museums are found, or if you are a sports addict. A prefecture or sous prefecture could have a football club, tennis, squash facilities or as in Beaumont le Roger specialist sport such as archery. Major tourist attractions should be close enough for the tourist in easy reach if you are hiring out a Gîte, B&B or Auberge from the fisheries museum in Fecamp, to the Musee Christian Dior in Granville or the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Rouen.

Fecamp Museum of fisheries and allied industries

French bureaucracy doesn’t stop at the way France administers its laws and red tape such as planning, environmental law, fiancé and tax. French bureaucracy runs through the lifeblood of every aspect of French life even the simple task of posting a letter or renewing car tax. In the second of these two blogs we will be discussing postcodes and car number plates, sounds boring? Read the next blog: Bureaucracy Gone Mad: The postcodes and the car number plate game in part II.

Musee de beaux arts Rouen