Departments Of France
In the administrative division of France, the department (French: département, ) is one of the three levels of government below the national level, between the region and the commune. There are 96 departments in metropolitan France and 5 Overseas departments, which also are classified as regions. Departments are further subdivided into 342 arrondissements, themselves divided into cantons; the latter two have no autonomy and are used for the organisation of public services or elections.
Departments are administered by elected General Councils (conseil général) and their Presidents, whose main areas of responsibility include the management of a number of social and welfare allowances, of junior high school (collège) buildings and technical staff, of local roads and school and rural buses, and a contribution to municipal infrastructures. Local services of the State administration are traditionally organised at departmental level, where the Prefect represents the Government; however, regions have gained importance in this regard since the 2000s, with some department-level services merged into region-level services.
Departments were created in 1790 as a rational replacement of Ancien Régime provinces in view of strengthening national unity; almost all of them are therefore named after rivers, mountains or coasts rather than after historical or cultural territories, unlike regions, and some of them are commonly referred to by their two-digit postal code number, which was until recently used for all vehicle registration plates. They have inspired similar divisions in many of France’s former colonies.
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Famous quotes containing the words departments of, departments and/or france:
“Some of these men had become abstrusely entangled with the spying departments of other nations and would give an amusing jump if you came from behind and tapped them on the shoulder.”
—Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977)
“A man sees only what concerns him.... How much more, then, it requires different intentions of the eye and of the mind to attend to different departments of knowledge! How differently the poet and the naturalist look at objects!”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
““Eh Bien you like this sacred pig of a country?” asked Marco.
“Why not? I like it anywhere. It’s all the same, in France you are paid badly and live well; here you are paid well and live badly.””
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)