This article analyses the first years of existence of the institutions of the French Community and the ·walloon region established by the constitutional revision of 1980 and its accompanying laws. The Community, which groups the Francophone Belgians of Wallonia and Bruxelles, was given certain powers in cultural matters and in such «personalisable» matters as health care, white the Walloon region was given a series of economic powers. The 1980 legislation created a Council and a Executive for each. The article divides the time since the passage of the laws into two periods. In the first period, from October 1980 to November 1981, the Executives were still part of the national governement; in the second period, which began after the general election of November 8, 1981, the Executives are no langer part of the national executive. They are now directly elected by the Councils according to a system of proportional representation of all parties with a sufj-icient electoral quotient. The article describes the establishment of these institutions and their legislative and budgetary activities since 1980. It concludes with an assessment of the experience that stresses the difficulties created by the complexities of the 1980 laws and recommends a fusion of Region andCommunity similar to that already extant in Flanders.