Prefect (France) in the context of "Pascal Mailhos"

A unitary state is a sovereign state governed as a single entity in which the central government is the supreme authority. The central government may create or abolish administrative divisions (sub-national or sub-state units). Such units exercise only the powers that the central government chooses to delegate. Although political power may be delegated through devolution to regional or local governments by statute, the central government may alter the statute, to override the decisions of devolved governments or expand their powers.

The modern unitary state concept originated in France; in the aftermath of the Hundred Years' War, national feelings that emerged from the war unified France. The war accelerated the process of transforming France from a feudal monarchy to a unitary state. The French then later spread unitary states by conquests, throughout Europe during and after the Napoleonic Wars, and to the world through the vast French colonial empire. Presently, prefects remain an illustration of the French unitary state system, as the representatives of the State in each department, tasked with upholding central government policies.

In France, a prefecture (French: préfecture, pronounced [pʁefɛktyʁ] ) may be:

• the chef-lieu de département, the commune in which the administration of a department is located;
• the chef-lieu de région, the commune in which the administration of a region is located;
• the jurisdiction of a prefecture;
• the official residence or headquarters of a prefect.

Although the administration of departments and regions is distinct, a regional prefect is ex officio prefect of the department in which the regional prefecture is located. The officeholder has authority upon the other prefects in the region on a range of matters.

In the administrative divisions of France, the department (French: département, pronounced [depaʁtəmɑ̃] ) is one of the three levels of government under the national level ("territorial collectivities"), between the administrative regions and the communes. There are a total of 101 departments, consisting of ninety-six departments in metropolitan France, and five overseas departments, which are also classified as overseas regions. Departments are further subdivided into 333 arrondissements and 2,054 cantons (as of 2023). These last two levels of government have no political autonomy, instead serving as the administrative basis for the local organisation of police, fire departments, and, in certain cases, elections.

Each department is administered by an elected body called a departmental council (sg. conseil départemental, pl. conseils départementaux). From 1800 to April 2015, these were called general councils (sg. conseil général, pl. conseils généraux). Each council has a president. Their main areas of responsibility include the management of a number of social and welfare allowances, of junior high school (collège) buildings and technical staff, and local roads and school and rural buses, and a contribution to municipal infrastructures. Local services of the state administration are traditionally organised at departmental level, where the prefect represents the government; however, regions have gained importance since the 2000s, with some department-level services merged into region-level services.

France is divided into eighteen administrative regions (French: régions, singular région [ʁeʒjɔ̃]), of which thirteen are located in metropolitan France (in Europe), while the other five are overseas regions (not to be confused with the overseas collectivities, which have a semi-autonomous status).

All of the thirteen metropolitan administrative regions (including Corsica as of 2019) are further subdivided into two to thirteen administrative departments, with the prefect of each region's administrative centre's department also acting as the regional prefect. The overseas regions administratively consist of only one department each and hence also have the status of overseas departments.

Georges-Eugène Haussmann (French: [ʒɔʁʒøʒɛn osman]; 27 March 1809 – 11 January 1891), known as Baron Haussmann ([baʁɔ̃ osman]), was a French official who supervised a radical urban renewal programme of new boulevards, parks, and public works in Paris, referred to as Haussmann's renovation of Paris, aimed at introducing grandeur in the city. First a prefect in Var (1849–1850), Yonne (1850–1851), and Gironde (1851–1853), his skills as an administrator led to his appointment in Paris by Emperor Napoleon III in 1853.

The signature architectural landmark of his works was the Paris Opera, the largest theatre in the world, designed by Charles Garnier, crowning the centre of Napoleon III's new Paris. Haussmann completely rebuilt Paris above and below ground; on his own estimation by 1870 one in five streets in central Paris were his creation, while revamped sewers now ran alongside miles of pipes to distribute gas for thousands of new streetlights. With his right-hand Adolphe Alphand and at the Emperor's direction, a plan was laid out for four major parks at the cardinal points of the compass around the city: the Bois de Boulogne to the west, Bois de Vincennes to the east, Parc des Buttes Chaumont to the north, and Parc Montsouris to the south. The major parks and their smaller counterparts in the city were an immediate success with all classes of Parisians.

Haussmann's renovation of Paris (known in French as the travaux haussmanniens, [tʁavo osmanjɛ̃], lit. 'Haussmannian works') was a vast public works programme commissioned by French Emperor Napoleon III and directed by his prefect of Seine, Georges-Eugène Haussmann, between 1853 and 1870.

It included the demolition of medieval neighbourhoods that were deemed overcrowded and unhealthy by officials at the time, the building of wide avenues, new parks and squares, the annexation of the suburbs surrounding Paris, and the construction of new sewers, fountains and aqueducts. Haussmann's work was met with fierce opposition, and he was ultimately dismissed by Napoleon III in 1870. The renovation allowed Paris to shine during the Belle Époque (1871–1914); work on his projects continued until 1927. The street plan and distinctive appearance of the centre of Paris today are largely the result of Haussmann's renovation.

The Hundred Days (French: les Cent-Jours IPA: [le sɑ̃ ʒuʁ]), also known as the War of the Seventh Coalition (French: Guerre de la Septième Coalition), marked the period between Napoleon's return from eleven months of exile on the island of Elba to Paris on 20 March 1815 and the second restoration of King Louis XVIII on 8 July 1815 (a period of 110 days). This period saw the War of the Seventh Coalition, and includes the Waterloo campaign and the Neapolitan War as well as several other minor campaigns. The phrase les Cent Jours (the Hundred Days) was first used by the prefect of Paris, Gaspard, comte de Chabrol, in his speech welcoming the king back to Paris on 8 July.

Napoleon returned while the Congress of Vienna was sitting. On 13 March, seven days before Napoleon reached Paris, the powers at the Congress of Vienna declared him an outlaw, and on 25 March, Austria, Prussia, Russia and the United Kingdom, the four Great Powers and key members of the Seventh Coalition, bound themselves to put 150,000 men each into the field to end his rule. This set the stage for the last conflict in the Napoleonic Wars, the defeat of Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo, the second restoration of the French kingdom, and the permanent exile of Napoleon to the distant island of Saint Helena, where he died in 1821.