Everything about Communes In France totally explained
The
commune is the lowest level of
administrative division in the
French Republic. The French word
commune appeared in the 12th century, from
Medieval Latin communia, meaning a small gathering of people sharing a common life, from
Latin communis, things held in common.
French communes are roughly equivalent to incorporated
municipalities/cities in the
United States or
Gemeinden in
Germany. French communes have no exact equivalent in the
United Kingdom, having a status somewhere in between that of
English districts and
civil parishes.
A French commune can be a city of 2 million inhabitants like
Paris, a town of 10,000, or just a 10-person hamlet.
General characteristics
Total number of communes
As of
March 1,
2007, there were 36,780 communes in
France, 36,568 of them in
metropolitan France and 212 of them overseas. This is considerably higher than in any other
European country. This peculiarity is explained in detail in the history section below; briefly, French communes still largely reflect the division of France into villages or
parishes at the time of the
French Revolution more than two centuries ago.
| |
Metropolitan France |
Overseas France |
| Jan. 1, 1999 | 36,565 |
214
|
| Jan. 1, 2000 | 36,566 |
214
|
| Jan. 1, 2001 | 36,563 |
214
|
| Jan. 1, 2002 | 36,565 |
214
|
| Jan. 1, 2003 | 36,564 |
214
|
| Jan. 1, 2004 | 36,568 |
214
|
| Jan. 1, 2005 | 36,570 |
214
|
| Jan. 1, 2006 | 36,571 |
214
|
| Jan. 1, 2007 | 36,569 |
214
|
| Mar. 1, 2007 | 36,568 |
212
|
It should also be noted that, unlike that of some other countries such as the
United States, the whole of the territory of the French Republic, outside of some small overseas possessions, is divided into communes. On the territory of the French Republic there's no such thing as
unincorporated areas directly governed by a county or a higher authority. (This is similar to the situation in the
New England region of the United States.) Any piece of land in the French Republic is part of a commune, both in
metropolitan France and in its overseas extensions (including uninhabited mountains or
rain forests), with only the exceptions of:
- COM (collectivité d'outre-mer, for example overseas collectivity) of Saint-Martin (33,102 inhabitants). It was previously a commune inside the Guadeloupe région. The commune structure was abolished when Saint-Martin became an overseas collectivity on February 22, 2007. It is now one of only three permanently inhabited territories of the French Republic with no commune structure.
- COM of Wallis and Futuna (14,944 inhabitants), which still is divided according to the three traditional chiefdoms. It is one of only three permanently inhabited territories of the French Republic which isn't divided in communes.
- COM of Saint-Barthélemy (6,852 inhabitants). It was previously a commune inside the Guadeloupe region. The commune structure was abolished when Saint-Barthélemy became an overseas collectivity on February 22, 2007. It is now one of only three permanently inhabited territories of the French Republic with no commune structure.
- TOM (territoire d'outre-mer, for example overseas territory) of the French Southern and Antarctic Lands (no permanent population, about 200 resident scientists, soldiers and meteorologists).
- Clipperton Island in the Pacific Ocean (uninhabited).
Surface area of a typical commune
In metropolitan
France, the average area of a commune in 2004 is
14.88 km² (5.75 sq. miles, or 3,676 acres). The
median area of metropolitan France's communes (as of 1999 census) is even smaller, at
10.73 km² (4.14 sq. miles, or 2,651 acres). The median area is a better measure of the area of a typical French commune.
This median area is smaller than in most of the European countries, such as
Italy where the median area of communes (
comuni) is 22 km² (8.5 sq. miles),
Belgium where it's 40 km² (15.5 sq. miles),
Spain where it's 35 km² (13.5 sq. miles), or
Germany where the majority of
Länder have communes (
Gemeinden) with a median area above 15 km² (5.8 sq. miles).
This very small size of the French communes is due to the extremely high number of communes, mentioned above, in a medium-sized territory such as France. In 2000,
Switzerland and the
Länder of
Rhineland-Palatinate,
Schleswig-Holstein, and
Thuringia in
Germany were the only places in Europe where the communes had a smaller median area than in
France.
The communes of French
overseas départements such as
Réunion and
French Guiana are large by French standards, larger than communes of metropolitan France. They usually group into the same commune several villages or towns, often with sizeable distances between them. In
Réunion, demographic expansion and sprawling urbanization have resulted in the administrative splitting of some
communes.
Population of a typical commune
The
median population of metropolitan France's communes as of the 1999 census was 380 inhabitants. Again this is a very small number, and here France stands absolutely apart in Europe, with the lowest communes' median population of all the
European countries (communes in
Switzerland or
Rhineland-Palatinate may have a smaller surface area, as mentioned above, but they're more populated). This small median population of French communes can be compared with
Italy where the median population of communes in 2001 was 2,343 inhabitants,
Belgium where it was 11,265 inhabitants, or even
Spain where it was 564 inhabitants.
The median population given here shouldn't hide the fact that differences in size are extreme among French communes. As mentioned in the introduction, a commune can be a city of 2,000,000 inhabitants such as Paris, a town of 10,000 inhabitants, or just a village of 10 inhabitants. What the median population tells us is that the vast majority of the French communes only have a couple hundred inhabitants; but there also exists a small number of communes that are highly populated.
In metropolitan France, there are 20,982 communes with fewer than 500 inhabitants, which is 57.4% of the total number of communes. In these 20,982 communes there live only 4,638,000 inhabitants, or 7.7% of the total population of metropolitan
France. In other words, only 7.7% of the French population live in 57.4% of the communes, while 92.3% of the population concentrate in just 42.6% of the French communes.
A typical example: Alsace
The
Alsace region, with a land area of
8,280 km² (3,197 sq. miles), is the smallest region of
metropolitan France, yet it's divided in no less than 904 communes (903 communes until
2006, but the communes of
Bosselshausen and
Kirrwiller, which had merged in
1974, demerged on
January 1,
2007, thus bringing the total to 904). This high number of communes isn't special when compared to other regions of
metropolitan France, but when examined at the European level it reveals the peculiar situation of French communes.
With 904 communes, the small Alsace region has for example three times more municipalities than the kingdom of
Sweden whose large territory covering 449,964 km² (173,732 sq. miles) is divided into only 290 municipalities (
kommuner). Alsace has more than double the number of municipalities in the
Netherlands which, despite a population 9 times larger and a land area 4 times larger than Alsace, is divided into only 443 municipalities (
gemeenten).
Despite the Germanic heritage of Alsace, most of the Alsatian communes have aligned with the vast majority of communes in other French regions in their rejection of French laws pushing communes to merge with each other, whereas in most of the
German states bordering Alsace the municipalities (
Gemeinden) have been merged in various waves since the 1960s, thus massively reducing their numbers.
In the state of
Baden-Württemberg, just across the
Rhine River, the number of
Gemeinden was reduced from 3,378 in
1968 to 1,108 as of Sept. 2007. In comparison, the number of communes in Alsace was only reduced from 945 in
1971 (just before the Marcellin law enticing French communes to merge with each other was passed, see
Current debate section below) to 904 as of Jan. 2007. As a result, the Alsace region, despite a land area only a fifth the size of Baden-Württemberg and a total population only a sixth the population of Baden-Württemberg, has almost as many municipalities as this German state. The small Alsace region has more than double the number of municipalities in the very large and very populated state of
North Rhine-Westphalia (396
Gemeinden as of Sept. 2007) where municipalities mergers were carried out more extensively than in Baden-Württemberg, and nearly as many municipalities as in the also very large state of
Lower Saxony (1,022
Gemeinden as of Sept. 2007).
However these impressive results may hide a murkier reality. In rural areas, many communes have entered a Community of Communes only to benefit from government funds. Often the local syndicate has been turned officially into a Community of Communes, the new Community of Communes in fact managing only the services previously managed by the syndicate, contrary to the spirit of the law which has established the new intercommunal structures to carry out a much broader range of activities than that undertaken by the old syndicates. Some say that, should government money transfers be stopped, many of these Communities of Communes would revert to their former status of syndicate, or simply completely disappear in places where there were no syndicates prior to the law.
In urban areas, the new intercommunal structures are much more a reality, being created by local decision-makers out of genuine belief in the worth of working together in the urban area. However in many places local feuds have arisen, and it wasn't possible to set up an intercommunal structure for the whole of the urban area: some communes refusing to take part in it, or even creating their own structure, so that in some urban areas like Marseille there exist four distinct intercommunal structures! In many areas, rich communes have joined with other rich communes and have refused to let in poorer communes, for fear that their citizens would be overtaxed to the benefit of poorer suburbs of the urban area. Moreover, intercommunal structures in many urban areas are still new, and fragile: tensions exist between communes; the city at the center of the urban area often is suspected of wishing to dominate the suburban communes; communes from opposite political sides also may be suspicious of each other.
Two famous examples of this are Toulouse and Paris. In Toulouse, on top of there being six intercommunal structures, the main community of Toulouse and its suburbs is only a Community of Agglomeration, although Toulouse is large enough to create an Urban Community according to the law. This is because the suburban communes refused an Urban Community for fear of losing too many powers, and opted for a Community of Agglomeration, despite the fact that a Community of Agglomeration receives less government funds than an Urban Community. As for Paris, no intercommunal structure has emerged there, the suburbs of Paris fearing the concept of a "Greater Paris", and so disunity still is the rule in the Paris metropolitan area, with the suburbs of Paris creating many different intercommunal structures but all without the city of Paris.
One major problem with intercommunality, often raised, is the fact that the intercommunal structures don't have representatives directly elected by the people, so it's the representatives of each individual commune that sit in the new structure. As a consequence, civil servants and bureaucrats are the ones setting up the agenda and implementing it, with the elected representatives of the communes only endorsing key decisions. At the local level, this situation is quite like the one existing in Brussels, where power shared by many independent European states has resulted in that power being exercised by a bureaucracy not elected by citizens.
Future
The first five years of the 21st century have seen great changes at the communal level in France, but the situation still is unsettled. The new intercommunal structures, designed to solve the problem of a country with too many small communes, have met with clear success, but their powers -- as well as their relationship with the communes below them and the
départements above them -- still need to be defined in practice.
It is unclear yet where the trend is going. Will the intercommunal structures have representatives directly elected by the citizens in the future, as the
Mauroy Report proposed in 2000? But then, wouldn't this leave the communes as hollow administrative units? Already, a few well-known mayors of large French cities (communes) have abandoned their mayoral seats to become presidents of the Urban Communities, as in the case of the
Urban Community of Lille Métropole. Or will these intercommunal structures break up, in the end, after the state stops transferring money? Or perhaps, as some believe, the Chevènement law was just a first step toward a massive merger of communes, an attempt to have the communes work together and see the advantages of it, before they're eventually merged. In any case, the debate is sure to rebound in the next few years.
Miscellaneous facts
Most and least populous communes
The most populous commune of the French Republic is the commune of Paris: 2,125,246 inhabitants in March 1999.
Six of the French villages destroyed in the First World War have never been rebuilt. All are found in the département of Meuse, and were destroyed during the Battle of Verdun in 1916. After the war, it was decided that the land previously occupied by the destroyed villages wouldn't be incorporated into other communes, as a testament to these villages which had “died for France”, as they were declared, and to preserve their memory. The following communes are entirely unpopulated and are managed by a council of three members, appointed by the prefect of Meuse:
Apart from these special cases, the communes with the fewest inhabitants in the French Republic are:
- commune of Rochefourchat, in the foothills of the French Alps, one inhabitant at 1999 census (a 38-year-old divorced man).
- commune of Leménil-Mitry, in the woodlands of Lorraine in eastern France, two inhabitants at 1999 census (a 42-year-old man and his 38-year-old wife, him being the owner of all the estates in the commune, descending from the family of the local lords).
- commune of Rouvroy-Ripont, near the Champagne area, two inhabitants at 1999 census (an unmarried 60-year-old man, and an unmarried 73-year-old man).
Largest and smallest commune territories
The largest commune of the French Republic is Maripasoula (3,710 inhabitants) in the département of French Guiana: 18,360 km² (7,089 sq. miles).
In metropolitan France the largest commune is the commune of Arles (50,513 inhabitants) near Marseilles, the territory of which encompasses most of the delta of the Rhône River: 759 km² (293 sq. miles), or 8.7 times the area of the city of Paris (excluding the outlying parks of Bois de Boulogne and Bois de Vincennes).
The smallest commune of the French Republic is Castelmoron-d'Albret (62 inhabitants) near Bordeaux: 0.0376 km² (0.0145 sq. miles or 9.3 acres).
Most elevated commune
The most elevated commune of the French Republic (and of Europe) is Saint-Véran (267 inhabitants), in the French Alps: the altitude of the village at the center of the commune is between 1,990 meters (6,529 feet) and 2,040 meters (6,693 feet) above sea level.
Communes furthest away from the capital city of France
The commune of the French Republic furthest away from Paris is the commune of L'Île-des-Pins (1,840 inhabitants) in New Caledonia: 16,841 km. (10,465 miles) from the center of Paris.
In continental France (for example European France excluding Corsica), the communes furthest away from Paris are Coustouges (134 inhabitants) and Lamanère (44 inhabitants) at the Spanish border: both at 721 km. (448 miles) from the center of Paris as the crow flies.
Shortest and longest commune names
The commune of the French Republic with the shortest name is the commune of Y (89 inhabitants).
There are three communes in the French Republic which have the longest name (38 letters):
Names of communes other than in French
Names of French communes are normally in French. In areas where other languages than French were spoken, the names have been adapted to French spelling and pronunciation, such as Toulouse (formerly Tolosa in Occitan), Strasbourg (formerly Straßburg in Alemannic), or Perpignan (formerly Perpinyà in Catalan). However, many smaller communes have retained their native name. Here are examples of retained names in the languages once spoken, or still spoken, on the territory of the French Republic:
German: for example commune of Mittelhausbergen (1,680 inhabitants).
Dutch: for example commune of Steenvoorde (4,024 inhabitants).
Breton: for example commune of Kermoroc’h (324 inhabitants).
Occitan: for example commune of Belcastel (251 inhabitants).
Basque: for example commune of Ustaritz (4,984 inhabitants).
Catalan: for example commune of Banyuls-dels-Aspres (1,007 inhabitants).
Corsican: for example commune of San-Gavino-di-Carbini (738 inhabitants).
Comorian: for example commune of M’Tsangamouji (5,028 inhabitants).
Polynesian: for example commune of Hitiaa O Te Ra (8,683 inhabitants).
several Austronesian languages of New Caledonia: for example commune of Kouaoua (1,586 inhabitants).
several American Indian languages: for example commune of Kourou (19,107 inhabitants).
Classification
INSEE codes: INSEE gives numerical indexing codes to various entities in France, notably the communes (they don't coincide with postcodes). The 'complete' code has 8 digits and 3 spaces within, but there's a popular 'simplified' code with 5 digits and no space within:
2 digits (département) and 3 digits (commune) for the 96 départements of France 'métropolitaine'.
3 digits (département or collectivity) and 2 digits (commune) for the Overseas departments, Overseas Collectivities and Overseas Countries. See also : .Further Information
Get more info on 'Communes In France'.
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