According to our local newspaper the préfecture has decided to simplify the department's administrative structure to make it more efficient and maybe save us all some money.
So we now only have the DIRECCTE, the DREAL, the DRAC, the DDC-SPP, the DDT, the DTARS (which used to be the DDASS), the DDFIP and the IA. Not forgetting the PPR, the CAR, the ANATH, the ATESAT, the DIR Mediterrannée, the DIR Massif Central and the DDE.
And of course in the préfecture itself there is the préfet's cabinet, the Service Interministériel de défense et de protections civiles, the secrétariat générale and the Direction des libertés publiques et des collectivités locales. Not to mention the sous-préfecture, the police, the gendarmerie and the délégation militaire run by the army.
Ah, I just reread the article and the changes are meant to make life easier for the préfet, not us. Had me worried for a moment.
ah yes Terry, got it in one (except it's England -v- France for me) but there again I still get a good feeling when France win too, not quite the same I admit, there's that little something somewhere deep down, deep rooted that will always be there regardless of the fact that life and family are here and French ;-)
I can't quite clock up 10 years, I'm only at eight and a half! but I know exactly what you're saying about feeling a stranger in your own country although I tend use more "the country where I was born/grew up" now as own seems a little too close to home and this is home as it is for you too I'm sure ;-)
Oh, and by the way, you ain't the only one who will never move back to the UK. Tried to work out once just how many years we'd lived in the UK since I first came to France in 1962. We came to the conclusion it was about 10 years. The rest was spent wandering the world reporting everything from test cricket, world cup soccer, cycling and skiing to mass suicides in Guyana, volcanic eruptions in St Vincent and a seemingly endless round of monetary crises in the EU. When I go back now I feel a stranger in my own country. If it weren't for family and a few old friends we'd probably never cross the channel.
I don't miss the UK and won't be going back but I do miss lower charges sociales - just going through the accounts of a business we're thinking of buying and wondering who gets the most out of it - it's looking like it's the state everytime!