Regions, departments, and communes
Vallée de la Rance (Dinan, Brittany)
MAEE, F. Eberhardt
France's local administrative organisation is based on a pyramid of administrative levels and a high number of local authorities. Following decentralisation, there are now three levels of fully-fledged local authority: the commune, the department and the region.
The commune
The commune is the smallest administrative subdivision and also the oldest, since it replaced the towns and parishes of the Middle Ages. It was established in 1789 and given its first taste of autonomy by the Act of 5 April 1884, which acted as a real communal charter.
The commune is managed by a municipal council elected by direct universal suffrage for a six-year term.
Once elected, the municipal councillors elect the mayor from among their number.
The mayor is the executive power of the commune, manager of its budget, the employer of commune personnel and has local responsibility for:
- schools
- town planning
- social action
- roads
- school transport
- collection of household refuse
- sanitation, etc.
The mayor is also the State official responsible for registering births, marriages and deaths, keeping public order, holding elections and issuing official papers.
France currently has 36,778 communes (including 162 in the French Overseas Departments and Territories).
The department
The department was created during the French Revolution and was made an autonomous local authority with an elected legislature and executive under the Act of 10 August 1871.
It is managed by a general council elected for a six-year term by universal suffrage and renewed by half every three years. The general council in turn elects a president as the department's executive power. The president prepares and executes the general council's deliberations, oversees the budget and manages the staff.
The department has broad-based responsibilities:
- social action
- building and maintenance of middle schools
- land consolidation
- organisation of school transport, etc.
France has 100 departments (four of which are overseas).
The region
The region is the most recent local French administrative structure. It became a territorial community following the decentralisation legislation of 16 March 1986; on the same day, regional councillors were elected for the first time for a six-year term by universal suffrage. The regional councillors elect the president of the regional council. The president oversees the budget, manages the staff and conducts the region's policy in terms of economic action, town and country planning, and vocational training.
The French Republic is made up of:
- mainland France (divided into 22 Regions and 96 Departments)
- four Overseas Departments (DOM): Guadeloupe, Martinique, French Guiana and Reunion
- seven Overseas Communities: French Polynesia, Wallis and Futuna, Mayotte, Saint Pierre and Miquelon, French Southern and Antarctic Lands, Saint Barthélemy and Saint Martin
- and one sui generis collectivity: New Caledonia
- Sources: Ministry of the Interior, Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs
- Updated: 25.06.2008
