The Preamble of the European Charter of Local Self-Government of October 15th, 1985 stipulates, in paragraph 3, that “(...)local authorities are one of the main foundations of any democratic regime”. This Preamble begins to define the spirit and philosophy of local self-government in member states of the Council of Europe. The author points out that in France, central government’s supervision of local authorities and decisions made by devolved authorities run counter to the decentralization reform.