The Council of Paris ( French: ''Conseil de Paris'') is the

deliberative body A deliberative assembly is a meeting of members who use parliamentary procedure. Etymology In a speech to the electorate at Bristol in 1774, Edmund Burke described the British Parliament as a "deliberative assembly," and the expression became the ...

responsible for governing

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...

, the capital of

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan area ...

. 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, rural counc ...

(''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,, ; Occitan language, Occitan: ''Lion'', hist. ''Lionés'' also spelled in English as Lyons, is the List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, third-largest city and Urban area (France), second-largest metropolitan area of F ...

and

Marseille Marseille ( , , ; also spelled in English as Marseilles; oc, Marselha ) is the prefecture of the French department of Bouches-du-Rhône and capital of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region. Situated in the camargue region of southern Fra ...

(hence the PLM

acronym An acronym is a word or name formed from the initial components of a longer name or phrase. Acronyms are usually formed from the initial letters of words, as in ''NATO'' (''North Atlantic Treaty Organization''), but sometimes use syllables, as ...

). Paris is the only

territorial collectivity A territorial collectivity (french: collectivité territoriale, previously '), or territorial authority, is a chartered subdivision of France with recognized governing authority. It is the generic name for any subdivision (subnational entity) wi ...

in France to be both a ''commune'' and a ''département''. The

Mayor of Paris The Mayor of Paris (french: Maire de Paris) is the 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 C ...

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 of the time: the Crown before the

French Revolution The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in coup of 18 Brumaire, November 1799. Many of its ...

, and a state-appointed ''préfet'' (governing the Seine

département In the administrative divisions of France, the department (french: département, ) is one of the three levels of government under the national level (" territorial collectivities"), between the administrative regions and the communes. Ninety ...

) 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 rep ...

passed a law merging the functions of the commune and department into the City of Paris (''Ville de Paris''), which came into effect on January 1, 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 police prefecture (french: préfecture de police) is the unit of the French Ministry of the Interior that provides police, emergency services, and various administrative services to the population of the city of Paris and the surrounding t ...

(''Préfecture de police''), which also has authority over the

Paris Fire Brigade The Paris Fire Brigade (french: Brigade des sapeurs-pompiers de Paris, BSPP) is a French Army unit which serves as the primary fire and rescue service for Paris, the city's inner suburbs and certain sites of national strategic importance. The ...

, 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 Bobig ...

Hauts de Seine Hauts-de-Seine (; ) is a département in the Île-de-France region, Northern France. It covers Paris's western inner suburbs. It is bordered by Paris, Seine-Saint-Denis and Val-de-Marne to the east, Val-d'Oise to the north, Yvelines to the west a ...

, and

Val de Marne Val-de-Marne (, "Vale of the Marne") is a department of France located in the Île-de-France region. Named after the river Marne, it is situated in the Grand Paris metropolis to the southeast of the City of Paris. In 2019, Val-de-Marne had a p ...

) 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 & composition

The commune is divided into 17

electoral districts An electoral district, also known as an election district, legislative district, voting district, constituency, riding, ward, division, or (election) precinct is a subdivision of a larger state (a country, administrative region, or other polity ...

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

called the Council of Paris. The council elects the

the week after the municipal election, requiring an

absolute majority A supermajority, supra-majority, qualified majority, or special majority is a requirement for a proposal to gain a specified level of support which is greater than the threshold of more than one-half used for a simple majority. Supermajority r ...

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 subset of proportional representation electoral systems in which multiple candidates are elected (e.g., elections to parliament) through their position on an electoral list. They can also be us ...

in a

two-round system The two-round system (TRS), also known as runoff voting, second ballot, or ballotage, is a voting method used to elect a single candidate, where voters cast a single vote for their preferred candidate. It generally ensures a majoritarian resu ...

with a

majority bonus The majority bonus system (MBS) is a form of semi-proportional representation used in some European countries. Its feature is a majority bonus which gives extra seats or representation in an elected body to the party or to the joined parties with ...

. A party list which garners an

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 a method for allocating seats in parliaments among federal states, or in party-list proportional representation systems. It belongs to the class of highest ...

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 Municipal elections in Paris took place on 23 and 30 March 2014, at the same time as other French municipal elections. Anne Hidalgo of the Socialist Party was elected mayor of Paris, becoming the first woman to hold that position. She had been t ...

. 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.

History

Electoral system & composition

Councillors elected for the 2014–2020 term

See also