local vs. national

The drama of the evacuated squatters at Cachan continues. About 200 of the squatters who have refused to be housed elsewhere are now living in a municipal gymnasium across the street from the university dorm complex. According to Libération, the city government had first refused to provide a shelter for the expelled squatters since that would "perennize" the situation. But, continues Libération, the Socialist mayor changed his mind when the CRS (police force under the direct supervision of the Interior Ministry, not the local police prefecture) charged a group of the squatters, mostly women and children, who were camped out on the sidewalk in front of their former home, Building F. Le Monde doesn't report that incident.

So, if I understand correctly, here we have a local-national conflict. The local (left) government doesn't want to get involved in the situation that the national police have created by evicting squatters from a university building. In order for CRS to enter university property, the Recteur in charge of the IUT (technical university) of Cachan (It's part of Université Paris XI-Sud, in the Academie de Versailles if I am not mistaken), ie, a representative of the national government, has to ask them to do so.

According to Le Monde, forced evacuations of this sort have become more and more common recently. The article quotes local elected officials on the left protesting the police prefects' increasing approval of force to expel squatters (there is no mention of CRS involved in evicting squatters specifically, just the local police approving interventions). This is partly because, the article states, the government has to pay damages to proprietors when it doesn't expel the squatters.These damages have increased substantially in recent years, and the state had even fallen behind in its payments in some cases. This suggests another type of conflict, between local politicians and the local police prefects-- that is, again, between local government and national government (or its representatives).

All this administrative complication is giving me a headache! I'm worried I don't understand these articles since they're about French government and administration, not about la belle ville de Paris ...