to a minimum on their economic fabric tax levy

The "Les echos" newspaper had published on November 21, 2008 the point of view of Pierre Simon, President of the Chamber of commerce and industry of Paris, favourable to the reform of the Chambers of commerce. Here is the expression of the contrary point of view whereas a decisive General Assembly of the Chambers of commerce should gather on April 14 to stop the schema that will be proposed to the Government.

This is not me, it is another! By these words heard the Secretariat of State for SMEs as the seats in the permanent meetings of the Chambers of commerce and industry (CCI) and chambers of trades and crafts (CMA), their officials return the paternity of a reform project that nobody dares take. It is neither more nor less to remove the local consular Chambers by absorbed by their regional structures which they constitute more than sections delegations or settlements "attached" in a daring concept.

While them a mission representation and economic leadership of the territories, it is question of delete all their attributes in local business communities: more strategy, resources, or own personal fully centralized at the regional level. Similarly, the consular election would combine regional and local levels by transposing the model envisaged for communities, to maintain an illusion of representativeness to the elected representatives of the soil, according to a yet unknown electoral mode as not found.

Proclaiming, through the general public policies (RGPP) journal welcome, the old cliches of the General Inspectorate of Finance on intermediate bodies also unnecessary as victimizations of public funds, bills amending these categories of public institutions are already under the mantle, before even that effective consultation has been conducted with these networks, deftly handled and anesthetized. Operation is even lifted curtain of the reform of territorial communities, intended to show the bold way to found modernity.

However it is not a reform that modernizes, but a reform that kills, making disappear proximity tools, like-minded business leaders dedicated to their territories, to a minimum on their economic fabric tax levy, to finance their missions. No more generator reform of economies, but which guarantees a regional inflation drift, by the establishment of a local culture wasteful of a tax collected by the upper level and the inevitable upward harmonization of personnel expenses.

Beyond that, this process would generate a new regional technostructure, negating the entrepreneurial spirit of economic officials attached to the performance of their employment basin. These new rooms "in region" constitute then new opportunities for senior officials in need of prospects in compressed State structures. All under the guidance of new Central Government, while the consular members elected locally would make tapestry on the ground.

By natural legitimists, political proximity or ambient fatalism, number of consular officials do not measure the self-destructive risk of such a reform, intended to pursue legitimate objectives of streamlining and sharing. However, thoughtful and innovative proposals exist in this regard, taking fully into account the reality of the regional fact. They have found no echo from the Parisian elite manoeuvring, playing the sorcerer's apprentices of reform in test tube, away from the "real life" of the country.

Former President national IAB and parliamentary, in charge of local and regional mandates, I measure with concern and sadness the impact of such a reform, if it's true goal: get the "standardization" of these networks, by an administrative glaciation and Jacobin of independent living and imaginative, low-cost structures for businesses with service, compared with the tax levies of the communities.

Observe that the lucidity on the dangers of this approach is to develop the assets of militant members of the local development, Max Roustan, Deputy-Mayor of Alès. It is not necessary to be a front-end opponent to power in place to worry about such a threat to the maintenance of active complementarity between local elected representatives responsible and autonomous economic actors. Wish that the new parliamentary prerogatives in the development of legislative texts allow the preservation of regional consular bodies of full exercise.

At the time where Edouard Balladur comes to his ambitious report to the President of the Republic, excluding any forced approach and acknowledging that there is no local community without ability to lift a minimum of tax, the deprivation of the Chambers of the ability to control the proceeds of their assigned tax territories undermine their vocation of local businesses. Must hope that the Government take conscience that politically has everything to lose, and economically nothing to win, to resume his reform that kills.