French Senate’s localism gutted national public health enforcement

Evidence

In each case, the Senate insisted that elected mayors and local doctors, rather than professionals working exclusively for the state, be entrusted with the new health administration. In the case of public health, this provision compromised the effectiveness of the new law from the outset; mayors and doctors would have little incentive to enact the 1902 regulations, yet there would be no overarching corps of inspectors to force them to comply. — Alice L. Conklin, A Mission to Civilize_ The Republican…, 216

Categorization

• XREF: Sets up the contrast with colonial Senegal, where the state enforced hygiene top-down on Africans without local veto — relevant to the ‘forced’ republicanism theme.
• QUESTION: Worth chasing: did this metropolitan weakness encourage colonial health officials to use coercive power over Africans they lacked at home?