Louis XIV, Coronavirus & The ECB (1/7): The Link

Come on! What kind of article Contrib’City is going to give us with such a title?, You will ask yourself. And you will be right to wonder. So why, such a title? What link could well exist, even tenuous, between this famous French statesman, the current epidemic (both less fatal than many others but still terrible, especially for bereaved families) and the European Central Bank, this financial institution whose role and media presence is growing every day? To these two questions, CC replies that he chose this title because, beyond an apparent inconsistency, the three points are intimately linked.

As already mentioned in several previous articles^[1]https://contrib.city/index.php/en/2020/03/27/ms-hidalgo-containment-and-urban-density/, https://contrib.city/index.php/2020/03/13/centre-ville-de-jouy-le-chantier-de-la-polemique/, https://contrib.city/index.php/en/2019/09/12/rurbanity-the-example-of-metz-france-1st-part/, https://contrib.city/index.php/en/2019/09/20/rurbanisation-the-example-of-metz-france-2-2/, https://contrib.city/index.php/en/2019/08/26/metz-agglomeration-france-why-so-many-underexploited-assets/, https://contrib.city/index.php/en/2019/07/03/english-potentiels-et-vulnerabilite-de-jouy-en-josas/, https://contrib.city/index.php/en/2019/07/06/urbanisation-and-the-fluvial-risk-factor/, CC devotes part of its territorial reflection to the question of centralization / decentralization which is simply a way of approaching the governance of territories, whether at continental or local level. The medical, but above all social, impact of the Corona virus and the economic consequences which will ensue from it, forced CC to take an interest in this health problem which, first of all, did not at all fall within the domain of expertise of the site (town planning, social and economic organization, environment). CC, for several weeks now, has positioned the current health crisis in the context of the various epidemics that have already affected France and Europe in the past.

Contrib’City will show how the centralization decided by Louis XIV, also called the Sun King (le Roi-Soleil), has persisted from the XVIIth century until today. The site will explain how this territorial governance, if it has brought benefits to France, has also participated in confronting this country, and in particular its capital region, with vulnerabilities of different types: health, like the Corona virus, but also socio-economic, like the urban riots of 2005. Finally, as under the Sun King, we will see how strategic decisions relating to the organization of territories, whether via military conflicts or commercial agreements, are taken at continental scale. Contrib’City will demonstrate how this European dynamic, carried out nowadays in an increasingly daily and media-based way, could change the situation and operate a form of decentralization in France, deeply initiated with the choice of a common currency, the euro .

Bibliographie ^[2]BÉLY Lucien, La France moderne (Modern France). 1498-1789, Paris, PUF, 2003 ^[3]GARNOT Benoît, La population française : aux XVIe, XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles (The French Population: In The XVIth, XVIIth et XVIIIth Century), Paris, Ophrys, 2005. ^[4]LAROUSSE, Guerre de la succession d’Espagne (War Of The Spanish Succession). [Consulté le 08 avril 2020], disponible sur : https://www.larousse.fr/encyclopedie/divers/guerre_de_la_Succession_dEspagne/145407 ^[5]HERODOTE, 1702-1713 – Guerre de la Succession d’Espagne (War Of The Spanish Succession), le 18/12/04. [Consulté le 08 avril 2020], disponible sur : https://www.herodote.net/Guerre_de_la_Succession_d_Espagne-synthese-84.php ^[6]REINHARD Marcel, “La population française au XVIIe siècle” (The French Population In The XVIIth Century) in Population, 1958, p 619-630, [Consulté le 08 avril 2020], disponible sur : https://www.persee.fr/doc/pop_0032-4663_1958_num_13_4_5734 ^[7]CARMONA Michel, Haussman, Paris, Fayard, 2000, 647p

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