The National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies (, ), abbreviated INSEE or Insee ( , ), is the
national statistics bureau 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 collects and publishes information about the
French economy and
people
The term "the people" refers to the public or Common people, common mass of people of a polity. As such it is a concept of human rights law, international law as well as constitutional law, particularly used for claims of popular sovereignty. I ...
and carries out the periodic national census. Headquartered in
Montrouge, a commune in the southern
Parisian suburbs, it is the French branch of
Eurostat
Eurostat ("European Statistical Office"; also DG ESTAT) is a department of the European Commission ( Directorate-General), located in the Kirchberg quarter of Luxembourg City, Luxembourg. Eurostat's main responsibilities are to provide statist ...
. The INSEE was created in 1946 as a successor to the
Vichy regime's National Statistics Service (SNS). It works in close cooperation with the
Institut national d'études démographiques (INED).
Purpose
The INSEE is responsible for the production and analysis of official statistics in France. Its best known responsibilities include:
* Organising and publishing the national census.
* Producing various
indices – which are widely recognised as being of excellent quality – including an inflation index used for determining the rates of rents and the costs associated with construction.
* Eurostat uses INSEE statistics in combination with those of other national statistical agencies to compile comparable statistics for the
European Union
The European Union (EU) is a supranational union, supranational political union, political and economic union of Member state of the European Union, member states that are Geography of the European Union, located primarily in Europe. The u ...
as a whole. It is also widely recognized as representing France on international questions of statistics.
Organisation
The INSEE is the responsibility of
MINEFI, the French Ministry of Finance. The current director is Jean-Luc Tavernier. However, Eurostat considers INSEE as an independent body, although its independence is not written in the law.
Teaching and research
Research and teaching for the INSEE is undertaken by GENES or Group of the National Schools of the Economy and Statistics (French: ''Groupe des Écoles Nationales d'Économie et Statistique'') which includes:
*
ENSAE (''École nationale de la statistique et de l'administration économique''), a ''
grande école
A (; ) is a specialized top-level educational institution in France and some other countries such as Morocco and Tunisia. are part of an alternative educational system that operates alongside the mainstream List of public universities in Franc ...
'' which trains INSEE administrators and engineers specialized in statistics, the economy, and finance.
*
ENSAI, (''École nationale de la statistique et de l'analyse de l'information''), an engineering school.
Codes and numbering system
INSEE gives numerical indexing codes (French: ''les Codes INSEE'') to various entities in France:
* INSEE codes (known as COG) are given to various administrative units, notably the French
communes (they do not coincide with
postcodes). The 'complete' code has 8 digits and 3 spaces within, but there is a popular 'simplified' code with 5 digits and no space within:
** 2 digits (''
département'') and 3 digits (commune) for the 96 ''départements'' of
Metropolitan France
Metropolitan France ( or ), also known as European France (), is the area of France which is geographically in Europe and chiefly comprises #Hexagon, the mainland, popularly known as "the Hexagon" ( or ), and Corsica. This collective name for the ...
.
** 3 digits (''département'' or collectivity) and 2 digits (commune) for the
Overseas departments,
Overseas Territorial Collectivities and
Overseas Countries and Territories.
* INSEE numbers (13 digits + a two-digit key) are
national identification number
A national identification number or national identity number is used by the governments of many countries as a means of uniquely identifying their citizens or residents for the purposes of work, taxation, government benefits, health care, bank ...
s given to people. The format is as follows: ''syymmlllllooo kk'', where
** ''s'' is 1 for a male, 2 for a female for a permanent number; it is 7 for a male, 8 for a female for a temporary number,
** ''yy'' are the last two digits of the year of birth,
** ''mm'' is the month of birth or a number above 20 if the birthdate is unknown
** ''lllll'' is the COG for the location of birth,
** ''ooo'' is an order number to distinguish people being born at the same place in the same year and month.
** 'kk' is the "control key", equal to 97-(the rest of the number
modulo
In computing and mathematics, the modulo operation returns the remainder or signed remainder of a division, after one number is divided by another, the latter being called the '' modulus'' of the operation.
Given two positive numbers and , mo ...
97).
There are exceptions for people in particular situations.
*
SIREN codes are given to businesses and nonprofit associations,
SIRET codes to their establishments and facilities.
History
Statistics in France before the INSEE
The INSEE was preceded by several related statistical agencies in France. In 1833, the Statistics Bureau (French: ''Bureau de la statistique'') was created by
Adolphe Thiers. In 1840 it was renamed ''SGF'' or ''General Statistics of France''.
Under the direction of Lucien March, the SGF expanded its activities. It began an investigation of consumption habits in 1907, following with periodic investigations on retail prices in 1911.
In 1920
Alfred Sauvy introduced competitive entrance exams for SGF recruitment. However, it was
René Carmille, a pioneer of the use of the
calculator
An electronic calculator is typically a portable electronic device used to perform calculations, ranging from basic arithmetic to complex mathematics.
The first solid-state electronic calculator was created in the early 1960s. Pocket-si ...
s, who laid the foundations of the modern organization. In 1940, the Demographic Service (''Service de la démographie'') was created under the Ministry of Finance in order to replace the military recruitment office prohibited by the
June 1940 Armistice with
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany, officially known as the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, was the German Reich, German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a Totalit ...
. In order to better conceal its undertakings, the Demographic Service absorbed the SGF on 11 October 1941. The new organization was called the ''SNS'' or ''National Statistics Service''. As part of this reorganization, six new offices were created in the
Northern (occupied) zone whose regional structure is maintained today in INSEE.
René Carmille created an Applied Sciences School (predecessor of the current
ENSAE) to specially train members for the SNS.
Carmille worked for Vichy France but he was actually a double agent for the French underground. From his position in the SNS he sabotaged the Nazi census of France, which saved untold numbers of Jewish people from death camps. He also used his department to help mobilize French resistance in Algeria. He was caught by the Nazis and sent to
Dachau where he died in 1945.
Creation of the INSEE
The SNS was finally transformed into the INSEE by the law of 27 April 1946, The National Institute of Statistics and Economic Surveys for the metropolis and overseas France (''L'Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques pour la métropole et la France d'outre-mer'').
IRIS
IRIS is the name for France's unit of
division of geographical regions for the purposes of taking a census. In order to prepare for the dissemination of the 1999 French population census, INSEE developed a system for dividing the country into units of equal size, known as IRIS2000, now known simply as 'IRIS'.
The acronym stands for 'Ilots Regroupés pour l'Information Statistique' ('aggregated units for statistical information')
and the 2000 in the name referred not only to the upcoming
millennium
A millennium () is a period of one thousand years, one hundred decades, or ten centuries, sometimes called a kiloannum (ka), or kiloyear (ky). Normally, the word is used specifically for periods of a thousand years that begin at the starting ...
year but to the target size of 2,000 residents per basic unit. Since 1999, IRIS has represented the fundamental unit for dissemination of infra-municipal data in France and its
overseas departments and regions. Towns with more than 10,000 inhabitants, and a large proportion of towns with between 5,000 and 10,000 inhabitants, are divided into several IRIS units. France is composed of around 16,100 IRIS in total, of which 650 are in the overseas departments.
[ There are 3 types of IRIS unit in use; residential IRIS (pop. between 1,800 and 5,000), business IRIS (containing more than 1,000 employees) and miscellaneous IRIS (specific large zones which are sparsely inhabited and have large surface areas (leisure parks, ports, forests etc.).][
]
List of directors
The following is a list of directors of the INSEE since it was founded:
*1946–1961: Francis-Louis Closon
*1961–1967:
*1967–1974:
*1974–1987: Edmond Malinvaud
*1987–1992: Jean-Claude Milleron
*1992–2003:
*2003–2007: Jean-Michel Charpin
*2007–2012:
*2012–present:
See also
* Observatoire National de la Pauvreté et de l'Exclusion Sociale The Observatoire National de la Pauvreté et de l'Exclusion Sociale (ONPES) is an agency of the French government. It aims at assessing poverty in France, poverty and social exclusion, exclusion in France.
Overview
The ''Observatoire National de la ...
* Value added tax
A value-added tax (VAT or goods and services tax (GST), general consumption tax (GCT)) is a consumption tax that is levied on the value added at each stage of a product's production and distribution. VAT is similar to, and is often compared wi ...
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Insee
01
Government agencies of France
National identification numbers
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 ...
Demographics of France
Economy of France
1946 establishments in France