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94-762: Aigre ( French pronunciation: [ɛɡʁ] ) is a commune in the Charente department in the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region of southwestern France . The commune has been awarded one flower by the National Council of Towns and Villages in Bloom in the Competition of cities and villages in Bloom . Aigre is located in the north-west of the Charente department 40 kilometres north of Angoulême . The town lies within

188-518: A dean . In ancient times, the archdeacon was the head of the deacons of a diocese, as is still the case in the Eastern Orthodox Church , while the archpriest was the chief of the presbyterate of the diocese, i.e. of the priests as a body. The latter's duties included deputising for the bishop in spiritual matters when necessary. In the western Church, by the Middle Ages , the use of

282-421: A "realm of 100,000 steeples". Parishes lacked the municipal structures of post-Revolution communes. Usually, one contained only a building committee ( conseil de fabrique ), made up of villagers, which managed the buildings of the parish church, the churchyard, and the other numerous church estates and properties, and sometimes also provided help for the poor, or even administered parish hospitals or schools. Since

376-445: A category currently being phased out), made up of 33,327 communes (91.1 percent of all the communes of metropolitan France), and 52.86 million inhabitants, i.e., 86.7 percent of the population of metropolitan France. These impressive results however may hide a murkier reality. In rural areas, many communes have entered a community of communes only to benefit from government funds. Often the local syndicate has been turned officially into

470-530: A commune for their administration. This is unlike some other countries, such as the United States, where unincorporated areas directly governed by a county or a higher authority can be found. There are only a few exceptions: Furthermore, two regions without permanent habitation have no communes: In metropolitan France , the average area of a commune in 2004 was 14.88 square kilometres (5.75 sq mi). The median area of metropolitan France's communes at

564-537: A community of communes, the new community of communes in fact managing only the services previously managed by the syndicate, contrary to the spirit of the law which has established the new intercommunal structures to carry out a much broader range of activities than that undertaken by the old syndicates. Some say that, should government money transfers be stopped, many of these communities of communes would revert to their former status of syndicate, or simply completely disappear in places where there were no syndicates prior to

658-679: A decision of the grand Seneschal of Poitou ordered the closure of the Protestant place of worship in Aigre. On 1 January 2019, the former commune of Villejésus was merged into Aigre. Or, a bend sinister of azure charged with a bunch of grapes surmounted by an ear of corn at sinister 2 ears of wheat in bouquet, the whole of Or debruised at dexter by a snail the same shelled azure, the whole accompanied at sinister by 13 Gouttes set in an arc: 4 in chief azure, 3 on bend of Or, and 6 at sinister azure. List of Successive Mayors of Aigre Taxation

752-574: A density of communes as France, and even there an extensive merger movement has started in the last 10 years. To better grasp the staggering number of communes in France, two comparisons can be made: First, of the original 15 member states of the European Union there are approximately 75,000 communes; France alone, which comprises 16 percent of the population of the EU-15, had nearly half of its communes. Second,

846-756: A massive merger of communes, including by such distinguished voices as the president of the Cour des Comptes (the central auditing administrative body in France). In 1971 the Marcellin law offered support and money from the government to entice the communes to merge freely with each other, but the law had only a limited effect (only about 1,300 communes agreed to merge with others). Many rural communes with few residents struggle to maintain and manage basic services such as running water, garbage collection, or properly paved communal roads. Mergers, however, are not easy to achieve. One problem

940-582: A much larger territory covering 449,964 km (173,732 sq mi) and yet is divided into only 290 municipalities ( kommuner ). Alsace has more than double the total number of municipalities of the Netherlands which, in spite of having a population nine times larger and a land area four times larger than Alsace, is divided into just 390 municipalities ( gemeenten ). Most of the communes in Alsace, along with those in other regions of France, have rejected

1034-610: A prayer addressed to Christ asking to "... endue our brother (name) with Thy Grace, and adorn him with virtue to stand at the head of the Presbyters of Thy people, and make him to be a good example to them that are with him ..." In the Russian tradition, protopresbyter is a higher rank than archpriest, as explained in a translation by the Orthodox Church in America : Although entitled "for

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1128-699: Is 35 km (14 sq mi); and in Germany , the majority of Länder have communes ( Gemeinden ) with a median area above 15 km (5.8 sq mi). Switzerland and the Länder of Rhineland-Palatinate and Schleswig-Holstein in Germany were the only places in Europe where the communes had a smaller median area than in France. The communes of France's overseas départements such as Réunion and French Guiana are large by French standards. They usually group into

1222-412: Is a clerical rank, a title of honor given to non-monastic priests and is conferred by a bishop with the laying on of hands and prayer. An archpriest typically wears an epigonation , a vestment originally worn only by bishops; however, details vary locally, and in some places being given the epigonation is an honor that typically precedes being made an archpriest and in other places, it is an honor that

1316-544: Is a rate of 16.05% on buildings, 49.81% on undeveloped land, 7.13% for residence tax, and business tax of 11.48% (2007 rates). The Community of communes levies 2.61% on buildings, 6.06% on undeveloped land, 1.09% for residence tax, and business tax of 1.45%. Aigre has twinning associations with: The inhabitants of the commune are known as Aigrinois or Aigrinoises in French. Percentage Distribution of Age Groups in Aigre and Charente Department in 2017 Source: INSEE It

1410-616: Is a survival of local practice of Latin Catholic Church prior to the Reformation . It was first employed in AD 1315 and has been held ever since. It was confirmed by an order in council on 1 April 1913 under King George V. The title reflects the fact that the archpriest has the right to sit beside the bishop and acknowledges no authority below that of the Archbishop of Canterbury, although today it

1504-513: Is built in an old loop of the river and is 65m above sea level. Aigre is traversed by the river Aume which has its source in Bouin ( Deux-Sèvres ) and flows into the Charente river at Ambérac . The Aume passes through the town which is built mainly on the right bank. The Aume divides into several branches, some of which pass through the old town. There are also some fountains such as the Font du Geau at

1598-500: Is clear that the population is elderly, especially for women. The Wheat mill, called the Moulin du Château dates from the 18th century and was converted in the 19th century to using the driving force of the water for the workshop for making Angelus liqueur. Currently, it has become the Gautier distillery which in 1990 employed 32 people at the plant and 20 in sales. Cognac Gautier joined

1692-428: Is given to only some archpriests. An archpriest also wears a pectoral cross both as part of his street clothes and when vested. The ceremony for making an archpriest is analogous to other clerical promotions bestowed with cheirothesia: at the little entrance of the divine liturgy , the candidate is conducted to the ambo in the middle of the church where the bishop is at the time, and the bishop blesses him and says

1786-770: Is located on the Aume river. Communes of France The commune ( French pronunciation: [kɔmyn] ) is a level of administrative division in the French Republic . French communes are analogous to civil townships and incorporated municipalities in the United States and Canada, Gemeinden in Germany, comuni in Italy, or municipios in Spain. The UK equivalent are civil parishes . Communes are based on historical geographic communities or villages and are vested with significant powers to manage

1880-533: Is more appropriate to go through the usual channels of the church's hierarchy. Haccombe is a village in Devon , near Newton Abbot , where the parish is combined with that of Stoke-in-Teignhead with Combe-in-Teignhead. There is an hereditary patron for the Church of St Blaise, Haccombe. The modern office most closely resembling that of archpriest is the role of rural dean (rural dioceses) or area dean (urban dioceses). Like

1974-479: Is now held by the rectors of the principal basilicas . However, the title is entirely honorary, reflecting the fact that these churches held archpriestly status in the past. In Rome today, there are four archpriests, one for each of the four papal major basilicas ; all of them are presently bishops : The use of "archpriest" in the Latin Catholic Church should not be confused with " protopriest ",

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2068-402: Is that mergers reduce the number of available elected positions, and thus are not popular with local politicians. Moreover, citizens from one village may be unwilling to have their local services run by an executive located in another village, whom they may consider unaware of or inattentive to their local needs. In December 2010 the law n° 2010-1563 regarding reform of territorial collectivities

2162-533: Is the Angoulême-Cognac Airport . The main hamlets are L'Ouche and Saint-Méxant to the north-west. The commune has only a few isolated farms such as La Combe and Cessac and the subdivision of La Broussette and the Castle of Crève-Cœur in the west. In the south-east there are La Servanterie , the college zone of Reuclos and Aizef at their limits with Marcillac-Lanville are essentially joined to

2256-592: Is the actual rural or area dean. One example of this historical oddity is the office of Dean of Bocking in Essex. The current Archpriest of St Blaise, Haccombe is the current incumbent, the Reverend Annie Church, the first female priest to hold this office in Haccombe. Archpriest , also protopope ( Ancient Greek : πρωτοπαπᾶς , protopapas ) or protopresbyter ( Ancient Greek : πρωτοπρεσβύτερος , protopresbyteros ),

2350-509: Is the only administrative unit below the commune in the French Republic but exists only in these three communes. These municipal arrondissements are not to be confused with the arrondissements that are subdivisions of French départements : French communes are considered legal entities , whereas municipal arrondissements, by contrast, have no official capacity and no budget of their own. The rights and obligations of communes are governed by

2444-653: Is the smallest and oldest administrative division in France . " Commune " in English has a historical association with socialist and collectivist political movements and philosophies. This association arises in part from the rising of the Paris Commune (1871) which could have more felicitously been called, in English, "the rising of the City of Paris". There is nothing intrinsically different between "town" in English and commune in French. The French word commune appeared in

2538-562: The Latin Catholic Church , it was traditional in some localities for a priest to be assisted at his First Mass by another priest termed for the occasion the archpriest , who functioned as the deacon otherwise does. This was not a permanent title but referred only to the particular occasion. In the Church of England there is at least one archpriest, the Archpriest of Haccombe . The title

2632-600: The Berger group in 1975 which was itself taken over by the Marie Brizard group in 1995. The secondary college of Osme hosts 180-200 students from the 6th to the 3rd divided into eight classes. Aigre also has a primary school with four classes. As the capital of the Canton, Aigre has a police station and a rescue centre. The cycling track is located in the town. The club is called ACJAR and they organize several amateur races in

2726-548: The Code général des collectivités territoriales (CGCT) which replaced the Code des communes (except for personnel matters) with the passage of the law of 21 February 1996 for legislation and decree number 2000-318 of 7 April 2000 for regulations. From 1794 to 1977 — except for a few months in 1848 and 1870-1871 — Paris had no mayor and was thus directly controlled by the departmental prefect. This meant that Paris had less autonomy than certain towns or villages. Even after Paris regained

2820-549: The National Assembly ( Assemblée Nationale ) passed a law creating the commune, designed to be the lowest level of administrative division in France, thus endorsing these independently created communes, but also creating communes of its own. In this area as in many others, the work of the National Assembly was, properly speaking, revolutionary: not content with transforming all the chartered cities and towns into communes,

2914-477: The Ordinance of Villers-Cotterêts of 1539 by Francis I , the priest in charge of the parish was also required to record baptisms, marriages, and burials. Except for these tasks, villages were left to handle other issues as they pleased. Typically, villagers would gather to decide over a special issue regarding the community, such as agricultural land usage, but there existed no permanent municipal body. In many places,

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3008-689: The USFSA championship of Charentes before the First World War . Thereafter the club has long been at the regional level and was in 1968 the winner of the Challenge of the Central-West League. The commune has several sites that are registered as historical monuments: There are many registered historical objects in the commune, several of which are in private collections. The commune has two religious sites that are registered as historical monuments: Aigre

3102-613: The United States , with a territory fourteen times larger than that of the French Republic, and nearly five times its population, had 35,937 incorporated municipalities and townships at the 2002 Census of Governments, fewer than that of the French Republic. The number of barangays in the Philippines, villages of Indonesia, and muban in Thailand also have a higher number than the French communes. There have long been calls in France for

3196-522: The archpriest of Ambérac. It was vacant and annexed to Mons from the 15th century. In 1789, a priest for Aigre was finally provided. Marie de' Medici stopped over in Aigre in 1619. In the 16th century a large part of the population became part of the reformation and together with Marcillac formed a Protestant parish of the Synod of Poitou. Protestantism was prohibited in Marcillac in 1665 then on 31 March 1667

3290-444: The mairies . These abrupt changes profoundly alienated devout Catholics, and France soon was plunged into the throes of civil war , with the fervently religious regions of western France at its center. It would take Napoleon I to re-establish peace in France, stabilize the new administrative system, and make it generally accepted by the population. Napoleon also abolished the election of the municipal councils, which now were chosen by

3384-702: The prefect , the local representative of the central government. Today, French communes are still very much the same in their general principles as those that were established at the beginning of the Revolution. The biggest changes occurred in 1831, when the French Parliament re-established the principle of the election of municipal councils, and in 1837 when French communes were given legal "personality", being now considered legal entities with legal capacity. The Jacobin revolutionaries were afraid of independent local powers, which they saw as conservative and opposed to

3478-547: The 12th century, from Medieval Latin communia , for a large gathering of people sharing a common life; from Latin communis , 'things held in common'. As of January 2021, there were 35,083 communes in France , of which 34,836 were in metropolitan France , 129 in the overseas departments , and 83 in the overseas collectivities and New Caledonia . This is a considerably higher total than that of any other European country , because French communes still largely reflect

3572-503: The 1999 census was even smaller, at 10.73 square kilometres (4.14 sq mi). The median area gives a better sense of the size of a typical mainland France commune than the average area since the average includes some very large communes. In Italy , the median area of communes ( comuni ) is 22 km (8.5 sq mi); in Belgium it is 40 km (15 sq mi); in Spain it

3666-401: The 36,683 communes have fewer than 500 inhabitants and, with 4,638,000 inhabitants, these smaller communes constitute just 7.7 percent of the total population. In other words, just 8 percent of the French population live in 57 percent of its communes, whilst 92 percent are concentrated in the remaining 43 percent. Alsace , with an area of 8,280 km (3,200 sq mi), and now part of

3760-732: The D739 which connects Tonnay-Charente to Fontafie , the D736 which connects Ruffec to Saint-Fort-sur-le-Né , and the D737 which connects Nanteuil to Angouleme . The local railway station is Luxé station on the Paris-Bordeaux line . It is served by the TER Nouvelle-Aquitaine network and the TGV passes without stopping. The Saint-Angeau to Segonzac line once passed through Aigre. The nearest airport

3854-558: The National Assembly also decided to turn all the village parishes into full-status communes. The Revolutionaries were inspired by Cartesian ideas as well as by the philosophy of the Enlightenment . They wanted to do away with all the peculiarities of the past and establish a perfect society, in which all and everything should be equal and set up according to reason, rather than by tradition or conservatism. Thus, they set out to establish administrative divisions that would be uniform across

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3948-494: The Région Grand Est, used to be the smallest of the regions of metropolitan France , and still has no fewer than 904 communes. This high number is typical of metropolitan France but is atypical when compared with other European countries. It shows the distinctive nature of the French commune as a geo-political or administrative entity. With its 904 communes, Alsace has three times as many municipalities as Sweden , which has

4042-408: The archpriest of old, these officers have supervisory duties, but not ordinary jurisdiction, and are entitled to carry out visitations of subordinate parishes when so commissioned. With this in mind, although the Archpriest of Haccombe holds a unique role in the Church of England, it is considered analogous with certain incumbencies which bear the title "Dean" regardless of whether or not their incumbent

4136-452: The benefit of poorer suburbs. Moreover, intercommunal structures in many urban areas are still new, and fragile: Tensions exist between communes; the city at the center of the urban area often is suspected of wishing to dominate the suburban communes; communes from opposing political sides also may be suspicious of each other. Two famous examples of this are Toulouse and Paris. In Toulouse, on top of there being six intercommunal structures,

4230-461: The bishop and report to the bishop or vicar general any problems in their territory. Exceptionally, the pope on occasion raised a territory to the rank of archipresbyterate nullius , detached from any prelature, yet under a non-prelate, as happened in 1471 with the future abbacy (1583) and later (1828-1986) Diocese of Guastalla . In 1598, during the persecution of Catholics in England , an archpriest

4324-466: The borders of the former provinces of Angoumois , Saintonge , and Poitou . The department of Charente is not served by the French motorway network so access by the A10 autoroute is by National Route N10 at Exit [REDACTED]  30  Poitiers-Sud in the north and by the former National Route N739 from Exit 34, Saint-Jean-d'Angely in the west. The commune is traversed by three former national roads:

4418-523: The central government's calls for mergers and rationalization. By way of contrast, in the German states bordering Alsace, the geo-political and administrative areas have been subject to various re-organizations from the 1960s onward. In the state of Baden-Württemberg , the number of Gemeinden or communities was reduced from 3,378 in 1968 to 1,108 in September 2007. In comparison, the number of communes in Alsace

4512-410: The chartered cities) suddenly became legal entities for the first time in their history. This is still the case today. During the revolution, approximately 41,000 communes were created, on territory corresponding to the limits of modern-day France (the 41,000 figure includes the communes of the departments of Savoie , Haute-Savoie and Alpes-Maritimes which were annexed in 1795, but does not include

4606-527: The city of Toulouse chartered by the counts of Toulouse). These cities were made up of several parishes (up to c. 50 parishes in the case of Paris), and they were usually enclosed by a defensive wall . They had been emancipated from the power of feudal lords in the 12th and 13th centuries, had municipal bodies which administered the city, and bore some resemblance with the communes that the French Revolution would establish except for two key points: In

4700-544: The country: the whole of France would be divided into départements , themselves divided into arrondissements, themselves divided into cantons, themselves divided into communes, no exceptions. All of these communes would have equal status, they would all have a mayor at their head and a municipal council elected by the inhabitants of the commune. This was a real revolution for the thousands of villages that never had experienced organized municipal life before. A communal house had to be built in each of these villages, which would house

4794-460: The departments of modern-day Belgium and Germany west of the Rhine , which were part of France between 1795 and 1815). This was fewer than the 60,000 parishes that existed before the revolution (in cities and towns, parishes were merged into one single commune; in the countryside, some very small parishes were merged with bigger ones), but 41,000 was still a considerable number, without any comparison in

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4888-412: The difference residing in the lack of administrative powers. Except for the municipal arrondissements of its largest cities, the communes are the lowest level of administrative division in France and are governed by elected officials including a mayor ( maire ) and a municipal council ( conseil municipal ). They have extensive autonomous powers to implement national policy. A commune

4982-585: The division of France into villages or parishes at the time of the French Revolution . (1) Within the current limits of metropolitan France, which existed between 1860 and 1871 and from 1919 to today. (2) Within the current extent of overseas France, which has remained unchanged since the independence of the New Hebrides in 1980. The whole territory of the French Republic is divided into communes; even uninhabited mountains or rain forests are dependent on

5076-532: The end of the afternoon, following the storming of the Bastille , the provost of the merchants of Paris, Jacques de Flesselles was shot by the crowd on the steps of Paris City Hall. Although in the Middle Ages the provosts of the merchants symbolized the independence of Paris and even had openly rebelled against King Charles V , their office had been suppressed by the king, then reinstated but with strict control from

5170-480: The fact that there are pronounced differences in size between French communes. As mentioned in the introduction, a commune can be a city of 2 million inhabitants such as Paris, a town of 10,000 inhabitants, or just a hamlet of 10 inhabitants. What the median population tells us is that the vast majority of the French communes only have a few hundred inhabitants, but there are also a small number of communes with much higher populations. In metropolitan France 57 percent of

5264-590: The foot of the Crève-Cœur Castle. Aigre has an oceanic Aquitaine climate but like all the department underwent Cyclone Lothar and Martin in 1999, and Cyclone Klaus in 2009, and a memorable flood in December 1982. Aigre comes from the Latin Acriacis or villa Acriacii meaning that the village was built around the property of a rich Gallo-Roman named Acrius . At the end of the 13th century Aigre appears in

5358-470: The form Acriacis then Agria in the 17th century. There is mention of a church in the 13th century. Nothing is left of a Castle located at a place called Saint-Mexant which was the subject of fortification works in 1472 except the dovecote, the enclosure, and the moat in 1906. The chapel built before 1706 has also been destroyed. Aigre belonged to the Lordship of Marcillac and was a very poor vicarage of

5452-558: The form of a law on 22 March 1890, which provided for the establishment of single-purpose intercommunal associations. French lawmakers having long been aware of the inadequacy of the communal structure inherited from the French Revolution for dealing with a number of practical matters, the so-called Chevènement law of 12 July 1999 is the most recent and most thoroughgoing measure aimed at strengthening and simplifying this principle. In recent years it has become increasingly common for communes to band together in intercommunal consortia for

5546-548: The king, and so they had ended up being viewed by the people as yet another representative of the king, no longer the embodiment of a free municipality. Following that event, a "commune" of Paris was immediately set up to replace the old medieval chartered city of Paris, and a municipal guard was established to protect Paris against any attempt made by King Louis XVI to quell the ongoing revolution. Several other cities of France quickly followed suit, and communes arose everywhere, each with their municipal guard. On 14 December 1789,

5640-437: The kingdom. A parish was essentially a church, the houses around it (known as the village), and the cultivated land around the village. France was the most populous country in Europe at this time, with a population of approximately 25 million inhabitants in the late 18th century ( England in contrast had only 6 million inhabitants), which accounts for the large number of parishes. French kings often prided themselves on ruling over

5734-653: The law. In urban areas, the new intercommunal structures are much more a reality, being created by local decision-makers out of genuine belief in the worth of working together. However, in many places, local feuds have arisen, and it was not possible to set up an intercommunal structure for the whole of the urban area: some communes refusing to take part in it, or even creating their own structure. In some urban areas like Marseille there exist four distinct intercommunal structures! In many areas, rich communes have joined with other rich communes and have refused to let in poorer communes, for fear that their citizens would be overtaxed to

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5828-552: The least money per inhabitant, whereas urban communities are given the most money per inhabitant, thus pushing communes to form more integrated communities where they have fewer powers, which they might otherwise have been loath to do if it were not for government money. The Chevènement law has been extremely successful in the sense that a majority of French communes now have joined the new intercommunal structures. On 1 January 2007, there were 2,573 such communities in metropolitan France (including five syndicats d'agglomération nouvelle ,

5922-414: The local feudal lord ( seigneur ) still had a major influence in the village's affairs, collecting taxes from tenant-villagers and ordering them to work the corvée , controlling which fields were to be used and when, and how much of the harvest should be given to him. Additionally, some cities had obtained charters during the Middle Ages, either from the king himself or from local counts or dukes (such as

6016-564: The lowest communes' median population of all the European countries (communes in Switzerland or Rhineland-Palatinate may cover a smaller area, as mentioned above, but they are more populated). This small median population of French communes can be compared with Italy, where the median population of communes in 2001 was 2,343 inhabitants, Belgium (11,265 inhabitants), or even Spain (564 inhabitants). The median population given here should not hide

6110-480: The main community of Toulouse and its suburbs is only a community of agglomeration, although Toulouse is large enough to create an Urban Community according to the law. This is because the suburban communes refused an urban community for fear of losing too much power, and opted for a community of agglomeration, despite the fact that a community of agglomeration receives less government funds than an urban community. As for Paris, no intercommunal structure has emerged there,

6204-411: The maximum allowable pay of the mayor and deputy mayors, and municipal campaign finance limits (among other features) all depend on the population echelon into which a particular commune falls. Since the PLM Law of 1982, three French communes also have a special status in that they are further divided into municipal arrondissements : these are Paris, Marseille , and Lyon . The municipal arrondissement

6298-486: The mayors. Civil marriages were established and started to be performed in the mairie with a ceremony not unlike the traditional one, with the mayor replacing the priest, and the name of the law replacing the name of God (" Au nom de la loi, je vous déclare unis par les liens du mariage. " – "In the name of the law, I declare you united by the bonds of marriage."). Priests were forced to surrender their centuries-old baptism, marriage, and burial books, which were deposited in

6392-425: The meetings of the municipal council as well as the administration of the commune. Some in the National Assembly were opposed to such a fragmentation of France into thousands of communes, but eventually Mirabeau and his ideas of one commune for each parish prevailed. On 20 September 1792, the recording of births, marriages, and deaths also was withdrawn as a responsibility of the priests of the parishes and handed to

6486-521: The north, cities tended to be administered by échevins (from an old Germanic word meaning judge), while in the south, cities tended to be administered by consuls (in a clear reference to Roman antiquity), but Bordeaux was administered by jurats (etymologically meaning "sworn men") and Toulouse by capitouls ("men of the chapter"). Usually, there was no mayor in the modern sense; all the échevins or consuls were on equal footing, and rendered decisions collegially. However, for certain purposes, there

6580-417: The north-eastern border. The oldest alluvium has accumulated in terraces mainly in the north of the commune. The south of the commune is a plateau. The Aume Valley is near the north-eastern border near the town. The highest point of the commune is at an altitude of 129m located on the south-eastern boundary (IGN marker). The lowest point is 62m located on the eastern boundary along the Aume at Aizef. The town

6674-425: The north-west of Charente such as the Criterium of Villejésus and the Tour of Aigre country . In 2010, the club organized, with the French federation of wheelchair sports , the championship of France of for wheelchair cycling in the commune of Saint-Fraigne . The town had already been traversed by the Tour de France but in 2009 for the first time it held the 1st stage in the 23rd Tour du Poitou-Charentes and

6768-518: The number of communes in the process – the Gemeinden of West Germany were decreased from 24,400 to 8,400 in the space of a few years – France only carried out mergers at the margin, and those were mostly carried out during the 19th century. From 41,000 communes at the time of the French Revolution, the number decreased to 37,963 in 1921, to 36,569 in 2008 (in metropolitan France). Thus, in Europe, only Switzerland has as high

6862-404: The number of municipalities compared to the large and populous state of North Rhine-Westphalia (396 Gemeinden in September 2007). Despite differences in population, each of the communes of the French Republic possesses a mayor ( maire ) and a municipal council ( conseil municipal ), which jointly manage the commune from the municipal hall ( mairie ), with exactly the same powers no matter

6956-417: The office of archpriest was replaced by the office of vicar forane , also known in English as "dean". The first recorded use of this meaning of the title comes from St Charles Borromeo 's reforms in his own diocese. Unlike vicars general and vicars episcopal, vicars forane are not prelates , which means they do not possess ordinary power. Their role is entirely supervisory, and they perform visitations for

7050-625: The only partially successful statute enacted in 1966 and enabling urban communes to form urban communities or the more marked failure of the Marcellin law of 1971, the Chevènement law met with a large measure of success, so that a majority of French communes are now involved in intercommunal structures. There are two types of these structures: In exchange for the creation of a community, the government allocates money to them based on their population, thus providing an incentive for communes to team up and form communities. Communities of communes are given

7144-403: The place of the former communes, which are represented by a delegated mayor and a delegated council. Between 2012 and 2021, about 820 communes nouvelles have been established, replacing about 2,550 old communes. The expression "intercommunality" ( intercommunalité ) denotes several forms of cooperation between communes. Such cooperation first made its appearance at the end of the 19th century in

7238-541: The populations and land of the geographic area covered. The communes are the fourth-level administrative divisions of France. Communes vary widely in size and area, from large sprawling cities with millions of inhabitants like Paris , to small hamlets with only a handful of inhabitants. Communes typically are based on pre-existing villages and facilitate local governance. All communes have names, but not all named geographic areas or groups of people residing together are communes ( "lieu dit" or "bourg" ),

7332-495: The provision of such services as refuse collection and water supply. Suburban communes often team up with the city at the core of their urban area to form a community charged with managing public transport or even administering the collection of local taxes. The Chevènement law tidied up all these practices, abolishing some structures and creating new ones. In addition, it offered central government finance aimed at encouraging further communes to join in intercommunal structures. Unlike

7426-489: The revolution, and so they favored a powerful central state. Therefore, when they created the communes, they deprived them of any legal "personality" (as they did with the départements ), with only the central state having legal "personality." By 1837 that situation was judged impractical, as mayors and municipal councils could not be parties in courts. The consequence of the change, however, was that tens of thousands of villages which had never had legal "personality" (contrary to

7520-465: The right to elect its own mayor in 1977, the central government retained control of the Paris police. In all other French communes, the municipal police are under the mayor's supervision. French communes were created at the beginning of the French Revolution in 1789–1790. Before the revolution, France's lowest level of administrative division was the parish ( paroisse ), and there were up to 60,000 of them in

7614-406: The same as those designed at the time of the French Revolution more than 200 years ago, with the same limits. Countless rural communes that had hundreds of inhabitants at the time of the French Revolution now have only a hundred inhabitants or fewer. On the other hand, cities and towns have grown so much that their urbanized area is now extending far beyond the limits of their commune which were set at

7708-403: The same commune several villages or towns, often with sizeable distances among them. In Réunion, demographic expansion and sprawling urbanization have resulted in the administrative splitting of some communes . The median population of metropolitan France's communes at the 1999 census was 380 inhabitants. Again this is a very small number, and here France stands absolutely apart in Europe, with

7802-505: The senior Cardinal-Priest in the College of Cardinals . According to the specific historical tradition, many churches throughout the world, other than basilicas, are under the authority of a priest who bears the title of archpriest . However, the title is mostly honorary and today, such an archpriest has no control over subordinate clergy other than that of a parish priest over junior clergy assigned to assist him in meeting pastoral needs. In

7896-414: The size of the commune. This uniformity of status is a legacy of the French Revolution, which wanted to do away with the local idiosyncrasies and tremendous differences in status that existed in the kingdom of France. French law makes allowances for the vast differences in commune size in a number of areas of administrative law. The size of the municipal council, the method of electing the municipal council,

7990-410: The suburbs of Paris fearing the concept of a "Greater Paris", and so disunity still is the rule in the metropolitan area, with the suburbs of Paris creating many different intercommunal structures all without the city. Archpriest The term may be used in the Latin Catholic Church in certain historical titles and may replace in popular usage the title of vicar forane , otherwise often known as

8084-609: The time of the revolution. The most extreme example of this is Paris, where the urbanized area sprawls over 396 communes. Paris in fact was one of the very few communes of France whose limits were extended to take into account the expansion of the urbanized area. The new, larger, commune of Paris was set up under the oversight of Emperor Napoléon III in 1859, but after 1859 the limits of Paris rigidified. Unlike most other European countries, which stringently merged their communes to better reflect modern-day densities of population (such as Germany and Italy around 1970), dramatically decreasing

8178-453: The title had evolved and became assigned to the priest of the principal parish among several local parishes. This priest had general charge of worship in this archpresbyterate, and the parishioners of the smaller parishes had to attend Sunday Mass and hold baptisms at the principal parish while the subordinate parishes instead held daily mass and homilies. By the time of the Council of Trent

8272-675: The urban core. The geology of the commune is limestone from the Jurassic period, part of the Aquitaine Basin as with all the northern half of Charente. The commune is on an Upper Jurassic area, specifically the Kimmeridgian . A small area of sandy soil dating from the Quaternary period covers the plateau in the south-west of the commune and alluvium (silt and clay) cover the Aume Valley on

8366-545: The victory of Anthony Ravard on 25 August 2009. The start of the second stage took place the next day at Rouillac . Bicycle touring has increased since the CC Aigrinois organized a biennial event called the Coco Trainaud whose last event was held on 15 May 2011. It is named after a former rider who has done a lot for local cycling. Soccer is a major sport in the commune with a club founded in 1902 that participated in

8460-571: The world at the time, except in the empire of China (but there, only county level and above had any permanent administration). Since then, tremendous changes have affected France, as they have the rest of Europe: the Industrial Revolution , two world wars , and the rural exodus have all depopulated the countryside and increased the size of cities. French administrative divisions, however, have remained extremely rigid and unchanged. Today about 90 percent of communes and departments are exactly

8554-428: Was adopted, which created the legal framework for the communes nouvelles (lit. "new communes"). A commune nouvelle can be created by merger of a number of communes at the request of the municipal councils of all the communes or at the initiative of the state representative in the department (the prefect ). The municipal council of the new commune can decide to create communes déléguées (lit. "delegated communes") in

8648-728: Was appointed by the Holy See as head of the Catholic Church in England . The archpriest had authority over all of the secular clergy in the country. The Archpriest Controversy was a dispute between Roman Catholics supporting and opposed to this structure. In 1623 the Apostolic Vicariate of England was established, headed by an apostolic vicar rather than an archpriest. The title of archpriest has survived in Rome , in Malta and elsewhere, where it

8742-1013: Was one échevin or consul ranking above the others, a sort of mayor, although not with the same authority and executive powers as a modern mayor. This "mayor" was called provost of the merchants ( prévôt des marchands ) in Paris and Lyon; maire in Marseille, Bordeaux, Rouen , Orléans , Bayonne and many other cities and towns; mayeur in Lille ; premier capitoul in Toulouse; viguier in Montpellier ; premier consul in many towns of southern France; prêteur royal in Strasbourg ; maître échevin in Metz ; maire royal in Nancy ; or prévôt in Valenciennes . On 14 July 1789, at

8836-545: Was only reduced from 946 in 1971 (just before the Marcellin law aimed at encouraging French communes to merge with each other was passed, see Current debate section below) to 904 in January 2007. Consequently, the Alsace region—despite having a land area only one-fifth the size and a total population only one-sixth of that of its neighbor Baden-Württemberg—has almost as many municipalities. The small Alsace region has more than double

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