Council Of Paris
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The Council of Paris ( French: ''Conseil de Paris'', ) is the deliberative body responsible for governing
Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...
, the capital of
France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...
. It possesses both the powers of a
municipal council A municipal council is the legislative body of a municipality or local government area. Depending on the location and classification of the municipality it may be known as a city council, town council, town board, community council, borough cou ...
(''conseil municipal'') and those of a departmental council (''conseil départemental'') for the ''département de Paris'', as defined by the so-called PLM Law (''Loi PLM'') of 1982 that redefined the governance of Paris,
Lyon Lyon (Franco-Provençal: ''Liyon'') is a city in France. It is located at the confluence of the rivers Rhône and Saône, to the northwest of the French Alps, southeast of Paris, north of Marseille, southwest of Geneva, Switzerland, north ...
and
Marseille Marseille (; ; see #Name, below) is a city in southern France, the Prefectures in France, prefecture of the Departments of France, department of Bouches-du-Rhône and of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur Regions of France, region. Situated in the ...
(hence the PLM
acronym An acronym is a type of abbreviation consisting of a phrase whose only pronounced elements are the initial letters or initial sounds of words inside that phrase. Acronyms are often spelled with the initial Letter (alphabet), letter of each wor ...
). Paris is the only
territorial collectivity A territorial collectivity (, previously '), or territorial authority, in many francophone countries, is a Legal person, legal entity governed by public law that exercises within its territory certain powers devolved to it by the State as part of a ...
in France to be both a ''commune'' and a ''département''. The
Mayor of Paris The mayor of Paris (, ) is the Chief executive officer, chief executive of Paris, the capital and largest city in France. The officeholder is responsible for the administration and management of the city, submits proposals and recommendations to ...
presides over the Council of Paris and therefore holds the powers of mayor and of president of the departmental council. There are currently 163 councillors for Paris.


History

Although the history of Paris spans millennia, that of its municipal government, in its present form, is less than half a century old. Paris and its environs were always governed directly by the highest French
polity A polity is a group of people with a collective identity, who are organized by some form of political Institutionalisation, institutionalized social relations, and have a capacity to mobilize resources. A polity can be any group of people org ...
of the time: the Crown before the French Revolution, and a state-appointed ''préfet'' (governing the
Seine The Seine ( , ) is a river in northern France. Its drainage basin is in the Paris Basin (a geological relative lowland) covering most of northern France. It rises at Source-Seine, northwest of Dijon in northeastern France in the Langres plat ...
département) afterwards. The office of mayor of Paris existed for brief periods during the 18th and 19th centuries, but was not an institution of government before 1977. From the creation of the mayoral office in 1977 until 2019, Paris functioned as both a ''commune'' and as a ''département'', and had a unique method for governing both; the Council of Paris, with the Mayor of Paris as its president, met either as a municipal council (''conseil municipal'') or as a departmental council (''conseil général''/''conseil départemental'') depending on the issue to be debated. In 2017, the
National Assembly In politics, a national assembly is either a unicameral legislature, the lower house of a bicameral legislature, or both houses of a bicameral legislature together. In the English language it generally means "an assembly composed of the repr ...
passed a law merging the functions of the commune and department into the City of Paris (''Ville de Paris''), which came into effect on 1 January 2019. The modern administrative organization of Paris still retains some traces of its previous incarnation as the government of the Seine ''département''. France's national government still controls the
Paris Police Prefecture The Paris Police Prefecture ( ), officially the Police Prefecture (), is the unit of the French Minister of the Interior (France), Ministry of the Interior that provides police, emergency services, and various administrative services to the po ...
(''Préfecture de police''), which also has authority over the Paris Fire Brigade, for example, and has jurisdiction extending to the ''petite couronne'' (small corona or halo) of Paris, the three bordering ''départements'' (
Seine-Saint-Denis () is a department of France located in the Grand Paris metropolis in the region. In French, it is often referred to colloquially as ' or ' ("ninety-three" or "nine three"), after its official administrative number, 93. Its prefecture is Bobi ...
, Hauts de Seine, and Val de Marne) for some operations such as fire protection and rescue operations. Paris has no municipal police force, although it does have its own brigade of traffic wardens.


Electoral system and composition

The commune is divided into 17 electoral districts representing the 20 municipal arrondissements (''arrondissements municipaux'') in which voters simultaneously elect members of the district council (''conseil d'arrondissement'') and city council (''conseil municipal''). After the 2020 municipal election, arrondissements 1, 2, 3 & 4 were merged into a single electoral district called "Paris Centre". No district elects fewer than 10 district members and 3 council members, nor more than 40 district members and 18 council members. There are 354 district council members and 163 council members in all. A number of members from each district council — roughly half the seats in each council, as well as those at the top of the party lists in those districts — are elected to and simultaneously serve as city council members, forming the
municipal council A municipal council is the legislative body of a municipality or local government area. Depending on the location and classification of the municipality it may be known as a city council, town council, town board, community council, borough cou ...
called the Council of Paris. The council elects the
Mayor of Paris The mayor of Paris (, ) is the Chief executive officer, chief executive of Paris, the capital and largest city in France. The officeholder is responsible for the administration and management of the city, submits proposals and recommendations to ...
the week after the municipal election, requiring an absolute majority of councillors in the first or second round, or by a plurality in the third round if necessary. The districts and city council are elected using closed
party-list proportional representation Party-list proportional representation (list-PR) is a system of proportional representation based on preregistered Political party, political parties, with each party being Apportionment (politics), allocated a certain number of seats Apportionm ...
in a
two-round system The two-round system (TRS or 2RS), sometimes called ballotage, top-two runoff, or two-round plurality, is a single-winner electoral system which aims to elect a member who has support of the majority of voters. The two-round system involves one ...
with a majority bonus. A party list which garners an absolute majority in the first round of an election in which at least 25% of registered voters participates automatically wins half of all seats in the arrondissement, with the remaining half distributed proportionally using the
D'Hondt method The D'Hondt method, also called the Jefferson method or the greatest divisors method, is an apportionment method for allocating seats in parliaments among federal states, or in proportional representation among political parties. It belongs to ...
to all lists receiving over 5% of the vote, including the winning list. If no party list meets these requirements in the first round, a second round is scheduled a week later. All lists which have won over 10% of the vote in the first round are qualified to run in the second. In addition, any other lists which have won at least 5% of the vote in the first round can merge with qualified lists for the second, but are not required to do so. In the second round, only a plurality is needed to win the majority bonus. This electoral system means a party list may receive a majority of seats in an arrondissement without winning an absolute majority of votes.


Councillors elected for the 2014–2020 term

This table summarises the 163 councillors elected in the
2014 Paris municipal election The 2014 Paris Municipal elections took place on 23 and 30 March 2014, at the same time as other 2014 French municipal elections, French municipal elections. Anne Hidalgo of the Socialist Party (France), Socialist Party was elected mayor of Pari ...
. See the
list of Paris councillors This page presents the current and previous members of the Council of Paris, who are elected for a six-year term. 2014–2020 councillors This list presents the 163 councillors of Council of Paris elected in the 2014 Paris municipal election. ...
for the full list.


See also

* Administration of Paris * List of Paris' councillors (2014–2020) *
Municipal arrondissements of France In France, a municipal arrondissement ( ) is a subdivision of the commune, and is used in the country's three largest cities: Paris, Lyon and Marseille. It functions as an even lower administrative division, with its own mayor. Although usually ...
* Paris Fire Brigade *
Prefecture of Police In France, a Prefecture of Police (), headed by the Prefect of Police (), is an agency of the Government of France under the administration of the Ministry of the Interior. Part of the National Police, it provides a police force for an area lim ...
*
Seine (department) Seine is a former department of France, which encompassed Paris and its immediate suburbs. It was the only enclaved department of France, being surrounded entirely by the former Seine-et-Oise department. Its prefecture was Paris and its INSEE ...
* Seine-et-Oise * Municipal Council of Paris


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Paris Council Government of Paris Departmental councils (France)