France
Despite enormous differences in populations, each of the communes of the French Republic possesses a mayor (French: maire) and a municipal council (French: conseil municipal) which manage the commune from the mairie (city hall), with exactly the same powers no matter the size of the commune and council. The one exception is the city of Paris, where the city police is in the hands of the central state, not in the hands of the mayor of Paris. This uniformity of status is a clear legacy of the French Revolution, which wanted to do away with the local idiosyncrasies and tremendous differences of status that existed in the kingdom of France.
The size of a commune still matters, however, in two domains: French law determines the size of the municipal council according to the population of the commune; and the size of the population determines which voting process is used for the election of the municipal council.
Read more about this topic: Municipal Council
Famous quotes containing the word france:
“The good critic is he who relates the adventures of his soul among masterpieces.”
—Anatole France (1844–1924)
“The bugle-call to arms again sounded in my war-trained ear, the bayonets gleamed, the sabres clashed, and the Prussian helmets and the eagles of France stood face to face on the borders of the Rhine.... I remembered our own armies, my own war-stricken country and its dead, its widows and orphans, and it nerved me to action for which the physical strength had long ceased to exist, and on the borrowed force of love and memory, I strove with might and main.”
—Clara Barton (1821–1912)
“The best of America drifts to Paris. The American in Paris is the best American. It is more fun for an intelligent person to live in an intelligent country. France has the only two things toward which we drift as we grow older—intelligence and good manners.”
—F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940)