公法
For many years, public law occupied a marginal position in continental European law. By and large, private law was considered "general law". Public law, on the other hand, was considered to consist of exceptions to this general law. It was not until the second half of the Twentieth-century that public law began to play a prominent role in European society through the constitutionalization of private law, as well as the development of administrative law and various functional fields of law, including labor law, medical law, and consumer law. Though this began to blur the distinction between public and private law, it did not erode the former. Instead, it elevated public law from its once marginal state, with an acknowledgment that there are few, if any, areas of the law that are free from potential State intervention. In Italy, for example, the development of public law was considered a project of state-building, following the ideas of Vittorio Emanuele Orlando. Indeed, many early Italian public lawyers were also politicians, including Orlando himself. Now, in countries such as France, public law now refers to the areas of constitutional law, administrative law, and criminal law.