Currently, spatial planning in France is increasingly integrated across thematic areas (e.g. ecosystem protection, climate change mitigation and adaptation, management of land uses) and comprehensive, in the sense that inter-municipal planning is encouraged. As far in the past as during the years of the French Revolution, a struggle took place between the Jacobins, who favoured strong central power as a way to pursue the goal of equality for all citizens, and the Girondins, who instead valued local independence. Debates in the Constituent Assembly at the time centred around whether national unity and equality before the law could be reconciled with local liberty (Schmidt, 2007: 17).