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126-611: Fismes ( French pronunciation: [fim] ) is a commune in the Marne department in the Grand Est region of north-eastern France . The commune has been awarded three flowers in the Competition of cities and villages in Bloom . Fismes is located 25 km west by northwest of Reims and some 12 km east by southeast of Braine . Access is by National Highway N31 from Reims through

252-427: A cash crop . The pulp, insoluble in water and mainly composed of cellulose , hemicellulose, lignin , and pectin , is used in animal feed. The byproducts of the sugar beet crop, such as pulp and molasses , add another 10% to the value of the harvest. Sugar beets grow exclusively in the temperate zone, in contrast to sugarcane , which grows exclusively in the tropical and subtropical zones. The average weight of

378-579: A dextrose equivalency (DE) above 30, the product has to be hydrolyzed and converted to a high-fructose syrup, much like high-fructose corn syrup , or isoglucose syrup in the EU. Uridine can be isolated from sugar beet. BP and Associated British Foods plan to use agricultural surpluses of sugar beet to produce biobutanol in East Anglia in the United Kingdom. The feedstock-to-yield ratio for sugarbeet

504-421: 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

630-562: 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 is 35 km (14 sq mi); and in Germany , the majority of Länder have communes ( Gemeinden ) with

756-445: 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

882-537: 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

1008-425: A conical, white, fleshy root (a taproot ) with a flat crown. The plant consists of the root and a rosette of leaves. Sugar is formed by photosynthesis in the leaves and is then stored in the root. The root of the beet contains 75% water, about 20% sugar, and 5% pulp . The exact sugar content can vary between 12% and 21%, depending on the cultivar and growing conditions. Sugar is the primary value of sugar beet as

1134-431: 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 the 1999 census was even smaller, at 10.73 square kilometres (4.14 sq mi). The median area gives

1260-574: 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,

1386-557: A family group recently took over the Ghent company. The commune has a number of buildings and structures that are registered as historical monuments: The Fismes Memorial site is located along the Vesle river, near the memorial bridge that was constructed with the help of the State of Pennsylvania. The Battle of Fismes and Fismette that occurred during World War I sparked a lasting friendship between

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1512-601: A halberd, bordered in argent charged with the legend SIGILL. MAIORIS ET IURATORIUN COMMUNIE DE FIMES in capital letters plain of sable. The town has been the capital of the Canton of Fismes since its inception during the French Revolution. It belongs to the arrondissement of Reims (district of Reims until 1801). Fismes is part of the Communauté urbaine du Grand Reims . List of Successive Mayors The inhabitants of

1638-415: 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" ), the difference residing in the lack of administrative powers. Except for the municipal arrondissements of its largest cities, the communes are

1764-582: A low toxicity . A study from the UK suggests yields of genetically modified beet were greater than conventional, while another from the North Dakota State University extension service found lower yields. The introduction of glyphosate-resistant sugar beets may contribute to the growing number of glyphosate-resistant weeds, so Monsanto has developed a program to encourage growers to use different herbicide modes of action to control their weeds. In 2008,

1890-756: 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

2016-697: 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 the same commune several villages or towns, often with sizeable distances among them. In Réunion, demographic expansion and sprawling urbanization have resulted in

2142-461: A nationwide average yield of 106.2 tonnes per hectare. Imperial Valley (California) farmers have achieved yields of about 160 tonnes per hectare and over 26 tonnes sugar per hectare. Imperial Valley farms benefit from high intensities of incident sunlight and intensive use of irrigation and fertilizers. Most sugar beet are used to create white sugar . This is done in a beet sugar factory, often abbreviated to sugar factory. Nowadays these most of

2268-482: A number of countries, notably the Czech Republic and Slovakia , this analogy led to making a rum-like distilled spirit called Tuzemak . On the Åland Islands , a similar drink is made under the brand name Kobba Libre . The second method to produce alcohol from sugar beet is to ferment the sugar beet themselves. I.e. without attempting to produce sugar. The idea to distill sugar from the beet came up soon after

2394-447: A particular soil and a proper climate for its successful cultivation. The most important requirements are that the soil must contain a large supply of nutrients, be rich in humus , and be able to contain a great deal of moisture. A certain amount of alkali is not necessarily detrimental, as sugar beets are not especially susceptible to injury by some alkali. The ground should be fairly level and well-drained, especially where irrigation

2520-520: A plant pest. Sugar from glyphosate-resistant sugar beets has been approved for human and animal consumption in multiple countries, but commercial production of biotech beets has been approved only in the United States and Canada. Studies have concluded the sugar from glyphosate-resistant sugar beets has the same nutritional value as sugar from conventional sugar beets. After deregulation in 2005, glyphosate-resistant sugar beets were extensively adopted in

2646-546: 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 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

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2772-415: A process for preparing sugar syrup from (red) beetroot . He wrote: "The beet-root, when being boiled, yields a juice similar to syrup of sugar, which is beautiful to look at on account of its vermilion colour" (1575). Because crystallized cane sugar was already available and had a better taste, this process did not become popular. Modern sugar beets date to the mid-18th century Silesia where Frederick

2898-522: A row, root to one side, greens to the other. A second worker equipped with a beet hook (a short-handled tool between a billhook and a sickle ) followed behind, and would lift the beet and swiftly chop the crown and leaves from the root with a single action. Working this way, he would leave a row of beets that could be forked into the back of a cart . Today, mechanical sowing, herbicide application for weed control, and mechanical harvesting have displaced this reliance on manual farm work. A root beater uses

3024-429: A series of blades to chop the leaf and crown (which is high in nonsugar impurities) from the root. The beet harvester lifts the root, and removes excess soil from the root in a single pass over the field. A modern harvester is typically able to cover six rows at the same time. The beets are dumped into trucks as the harvester rolls down the field, and then delivered to the factory. The conveyor then removes more soil. If

3150-442: A sugar beet ranges between 0.5 and 1 kg (1.1 and 2.2 lb). Sugar beet foliage has a rich, brilliant green color and grows to a height of about 35 cm (14 in). The leaves are numerous and broad and grow in a tuft from the crown of the beet, which is usually level with or just above the ground surface. The species beet consists of several cultivar groups. The 16th-century French scientist Olivier de Serres discovered

3276-533: Is 56:9. Therefore, it takes 6.22 kg of sugar beet to produce 1 kg of ethanol (approximately 1.27 L at room temperature). In 2006 it was found that producing ethanol from sugar beet or cane became profitable when market prices for ethanol were close to $ 4 per gallon. According to Atlantic Biomass president Robert Kozak, a study at University of Maryland Eastern Shore indicates sugar beets appear capable of producing 8,000–8,400 litres per hectare (860–900 US gallons per acre) of ethanol. In New Zealand, sugar beet

3402-473: Is also now grown in some parts of Australia as cattle feed. Molasses can serve to produce monosodium glutamate (MSG). Sugar beets are an important part of a crop rotation cycle. Sugar beet plants are susceptible to Rhizomania ("root madness"), which turns the bulbous tap root into many small roots, making the crop economically unprocessable. Strict controls are enforced in European countries to prevent

3528-475: Is approximately 731 (714–758) Megabases, and sugar beet DNA is packaged in 18 metacentric chromosomes (2n=2x=18). All sugar beet centromeres are made up of a single satellite DNA family and centromere-specific LTR retrotransposons . More than 60% of sugar beet's DNA is repetitive, mostly distributed in a dispersed way along the chromosomes. Crop wild beet populations ( B. vulgaris ssp. maritima ) have been sequenced as well, allowing for identification of

3654-444: Is practiced. Generous crops can be grown in both sandy soil and heavy loams , but the ideal soil is a sandy loam, i.e., a mixture of organic matter, clay and sand. A subsoil of gravel, or the presence of hardpan , is not desirable, as cultivation to a depth of from 12 to 15 inches (30 to 38 cm) is necessary to produce the best results. Climatic conditions, temperature, sunshine, rainfall and winds have an important bearing upon

3780-402: 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

3906-470: Is used to make Liquor , e.g. vodka , Gin etc.. An unrefined sugary syrup can be produced directly from sugar beet. This thick, dark syrup is produced by cooking shredded sugar beet for several hours, then pressing the resulting mash and concentrating the juice produced until it has a consistency similar to that of honey . No other ingredients are used. In Germany, particularly the Rhineland area, and in

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4032-568: Is widely grown and harvested as feed for dairy cattle. It is regarded as superior to fodder beet , because it has a lower water content (resulting in better storage properties). Both the beet bulb and the leaves (with 25% protein) are fed to cattle. Although long considered toxic to cattle, harvested beet bulbs can be fed to cattle if they are appropriately transitioned to their new diet. Dairy cattle in New Zealand can thrive on just pasture and beets, without silage or other supplementary feed. The crop

4158-594: The Center for Food Safety , the Sierra Club , the Organic Seed Alliance and High Mowing Seeds filed a lawsuit against USDA-APHIS regarding their decision to deregulate glyphosate-resistant sugar beets in 2005. The organizations expressed concerns regarding glyphosate-resistant sugar beets' ability to potentially cross-pollinate with conventional sugar beets. U.S. District Judge Jeffrey S. White , US District Court for

4284-577: The Chemin des Dames before they completely demolished the city in 1918. Fismes attempted to reconstruct itself slowly. Unfortunately, due to its position as a railway town through which passed trains filled with deportees being sent to Germany, the city suffered during the course of the Second World War . 14 residents of Fismes, who were seized for acts of resistance, died in Nazi concentration camps . Among them

4410-548: 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

4536-555: The Fronde , the ramparts of the city and the chateau were completely destroyed. After the revolution, a time of much inner conflict among the people of Fismes, Napoleon came to Fismes in order to sign two important declarations. Following Napoleon and the French Revolution , 30,000 Prussians arrived in Fismes and, once again, plundered the village. In the 19th century, France experienced

4662-549: 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,

4788-477: 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,

4914-720: 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

5040-444: 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

5166-432: 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 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

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5292-702: 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

5418-573: 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 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,

5544-408: 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 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

5670-554: The City of Fismes and the United States, particularly Pennsylvania. This bloody battle took place from 3 August to 1 September 1918 and was the last major German attack on the Allies during World War I. The 32nd American Division lost 2,000 men during its first attempt to cross the Vesle and attack the Germans. The 28th American Infantry Division, consisting of soldiers mostly from Pennsylvania, replaced

5796-516: 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 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

5922-673: The Gallo-Roman era, "Ad Fines Suessionum" (limit of the Suessiones' territory) or "Ad Fines Remorum" (limit of the Remi's territory), as the city was situated on the boundary of the two Gallic tribes Suessiones and Remi . As Charles Rostaing indicates, the Latin word "fines" is a translation from the Gallic toponym equoranda which means "boundary" or "limit". The barbaric period did not spare Fismes. During

6048-539: The Great , king of Prussia , subsidized experiments to develop processes for sugar extraction. In 1747, Andreas Sigismund Marggraf , professor of physics in the Academy of Science of Berlin, isolated sugar from beetroots and found them at concentrations of 1.3–1.6%. He also demonstrated that the sugar that could be extracted from beets was identical to that produced from cane. He found the best of these vegetable sources for sugar

6174-558: 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

6300-608: The Netherlands, this sugar beet syrup (called Zuckerrüben-Sirup or Zapp in German, or Suikerstroop in Dutch) is used as a spread for sandwiches, as well as for sweetening sauces, cakes and desserts. Dutch people generally top their pancakes with stroop. Suikerstroop made according to the Dutch tradition is a Traditional Speciality Guaranteed under EU and UK law. Commercially, if the syrup has

6426-623: The Northern District of California , revoked the deregulation of glyphosate-resistant sugar beets and declared it unlawful for growers to plant glyphosate-resistant sugar beets in the spring of 2011. Believing a sugar shortage would occur USDA-APHIS developed three options in the environmental assessment to address the concerns of environmentalists. In 2011, a federal appeals court for the Northern district of California in San Francisco overturned

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6552-711: 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 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

6678-476: The Thumb region of Michigan; both the region and state are major sugar beet producers. Sebewaing is home to one of four Michigan Sugar Company factories. The town sponsors an annual Michigan Sugar Festival. To cultivate beets successfully, the land must be properly prepared. Deep ploughing is the first principle of beet culture. It allows the roots to penetrate the subsoil without much obstruction, thereby preventing

6804-649: 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 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

6930-580: The United States, specifically Pennsylvania. The memorial site is the result of a collaboration of the City of Fismes with the Fismes Office of Tourism and the Association of Leisure and Recreation Services. The memorial consists of informational plaques and a set of sculptures from renowned artist Christian Lapie. Christian Lapie The memorial was officially inaugurated on 15 September 2018. The mayor of Meadville, Pennsylvania, one of Fismes' sister cities,

7056-449: The United States. About 95% of sugar beet croplands in the US were planted with glyphosate-resistant seed in 2011. Weeds may be chemically controlled using glyphosate without harming the crop. After planting sugar beet seed, weeds emerge in fields and growers apply glyphosate to control them. Glyphosate is commonly used in field crops because it controls a broad spectrum of weed species and has

7182-572: 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 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

7308-414: The beet from growing out of the ground, besides enabling it to extract considerable nourishment and moisture from the lower soil. If the latter is too hard, the roots will not penetrate it readily and, as a result, the plant will be pushed up and out of the earth during the process of growth. A hard subsoil is impervious to water and prevents proper drainage. It should not be too loose, however, as this allows

7434-410: The beets are to be left for later delivery, they are formed into clamps . Straw bales are used to shield the beets from the weather. Provided the clamp is well built with the right amount of ventilation, the beets do not significantly deteriorate. Beets that freeze and then defrost, produce complex carbohydrates that cause severe production problems in the factory. In the UK, loads may be hand examined at

7560-452: 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,

7686-410: 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

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7812-467: 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

7938-460: The coast of southern California, where warm, sunny days succeeded by cool, foggy nights seem to meet sugar beet's favored growth conditions. Sunshine of long duration but not of great intensity is the most important factor in the successful cultivation of sugar beets. Near the equator, the shorter days and the greater heat of the sun sharply reduce the sugar content in the beet. In high elevation regions such as those of Idaho, Colorado and Utah, where

8064-642: The commune are known as Fismois or Fismoises in French. The local economy was dominated by the presence of a sugar factory which ceased operations in 1978. The activity of light metalworking has also been present for a long time. Since 2008 the commune of Fismes has been integrated into the production zone for Champagne . The parcels of land authorized for planting vineyards are not yet known. The main business enterprises are Campa (manufacturing premium electric heaters), Finaxo (methods for water treatment and waste), Profinox , Fimaluplast (Aluminium Joinery and PVC), and Experton-Revollier (wire mesh surfaces);

8190-420: 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 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

8316-544: 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

8442-439: The crop at a steady rate to processing factories that run 24 hours a day for the duration of the harvest and processing (for the UK, the campaign lasts about five months). In the Netherlands, this period is known as de bietencampagne , a time to be careful when driving on local roads in the area while the beets are being grown, because the naturally high clay content of the soil tends to cause slippery roads when soil falls from

8568-403: The crop, which then had to be manually thinned two or three times with a hoe during the growing season. Harvesting also required many workers. Although the roots could be lifted by a plough -like device that could be pulled by a horse team, the rest of the preparation was by hand. One laborer grabbed the beets by their leaves, knocked them together to shake free loose soil, and then laid them in

8694-458: 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 a commune for their administration. This is unlike some other countries, such as the United States, where unincorporated areas directly governed by

8820-460: 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

8946-486: 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 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

9072-568: The east of the commune. Fismes station has rail connections to Reims. The Vesle river flows through the commune from east to west with the Ruisseau du Moulin and the Ruisseau Saint-Marie flow from the north into the Vesle . The Ardre river flows from the south to join the Vesle west of the town. Fismes, on the right bank of the Vesle, developed from a Gallic ancient town named, during

9198-487: The emblem of the commune and under the aegis of a mayor and two deputies, Fismes became autonomous. Thus, the village was able to develop its artisanship, businesses, festivals and markets. The walls of the city continued to expand; a church of stone, a château which occupied the current plaza of the post office and would one day house as governor, the poet Eustache Deschamps, as well as the City Hall, that continues to occupy

9324-532: 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

9450-422: The factory gate before being accepted. In the US, the fall harvest begins with the first hard frost, which arrests photosynthesis and the further growth of the root. Depending on the local climate, it may be carried out over the course of a few weeks or be prolonged throughout the winter months. The harvest and processing of the beet is referred to as "the campaign", reflecting the organization required to deliver

9576-531: The first beet sugar factory was established. Between 1852 and 1854 Champonnois devised a good system to distill alcohol from sugar beet. Within a few years a large sugar distilling industry was created in France. The current process to produce alcohol by fermenting and distilling sugar beet consists of these steps: Large sugar beet distilleries remain limited to Europe. In 2023 Tereos had 8 beet sugar distilleries, located in France, Czechia and Romania. In many European countries rectified spirit from sugar beet

9702-570: The first half of the Middle Ages, the Normands and the Hungarians, destroyed the city of Fismes multiple times. These ravages pushed the agglomeration of the city towards the heights of the Vesle's right bank. In 1226 Thibault IV , the Chansonnier (songwriter), helped Fismes become a free city, thanks to hard work of natives that participated in the war led by Thibault. By a charter and a seal that bears

9828-558: 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

9954-459: The former division, forced the Germans to retreat, and proceeded to liberate Fismes. As a result of the aid Fismes received from the American armies during World War I, the city constructed a memorial to honor the lives of the men in the 28th American Infantry Division. The main intentions of this memorial are to commemorate the soldiers' sacrifices and strengthen the ties that exist between Fismes and

10080-497: The heart of the commune and the town and continuing west to Soissons . There is also the D967 road from Longueval-Barbonval in the north to the town and continuing southwest to Chery-Chartreuve . There is also the D386 going south from the village to Saint-Gilles . Apart from Fismes there are three hamlets: Fismette and Baslieux are continuations of the urban area of Fismes while Villette is in

10206-548: 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,

10332-421: 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, 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

10458-437: 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

10584-653: 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

10710-552: 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 ,

10836-414: 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

10962-541: 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 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

11088-480: 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,

11214-486: 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

11340-429: 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 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

11466-427: 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 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

11592-425: 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

11718-521: 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

11844-518: 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

11970-625: 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

12096-476: The other two years. In most temperate climates, beets are planted in the spring and harvested in the autumn. At the northern end of its range, growing seasons as short as 100 days can produce commercially viable sugar beet crops. In warmer climates, such as in California 's Imperial Valley , sugar beets are a winter crop, planted in the autumn and harvested in the spring. In recent years, Syngenta has developed

12222-512: The overall domestic demand for sugar and were all net importers of sugar. The US harvested 406,500 hectares (1,004,600 acres) of sugar beets in 2008. In 2009, sugar beets accounted for 20% of the world's sugar production and nearly 30% by 2013. Sugarcane accounts for most of the rest of sugar produced globally . In February 2015, a USDA factsheet reported that sugar beets generally account for about 55 percent of domestically produced sugar, and sugar cane for about 45 percent. The sugar beet has

12348-403: 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

12474-495: 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

12600-478: The rapidly expanding industrial revolution. Sugar beet , porcelain of Fismes (which was rare and expensive), the foundry, the railway, hat making, tanneries and mills mark the advancements of the region and the economic history of this century. The 20th century began in worse conditions than the preceding finished. Fismes was greatly affected by the First World War . The Germans invaded the city, then remained on

12726-489: 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

12852-465: 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

12978-665: 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 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

13104-451: The ruling. In July 2012, after completing an environmental impact assessment and a plant pest risk assessment the USDA deregulated Monsanto's Roundup Ready sugar beets. The sugar beet genome shares a triplication event somewhere super-Caryophyllales and at or sub- Eudicots . It has been sequenced and two reference genome sequences have already been generated. The genome size of the sugar beet

13230-406: 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

13356-412: The same place, were all constructed in this formative epoch. The Hundred Years War between the English and the French brought, once again, the city of Fismes to ruins. Later the religious wars and the Fronde completely destroyed the walls of the city and the chateau of Fismes. From Louis XIII to Charles X almost all the future Kings of France passed through Fismes which was their last stop on

13482-423: The so-called tropical sugar beet. It allows the plant to grow in tropical and subtropical regions. Beets are planted from a small seed; one kilogram (2 lb 3 oz) of beet seed comprises 100,000 seeds and will plant over one hectare ( 2 + 1 ⁄ 2 acres) of ground. Until the latter half of the 20th century, sugar beet production was highly labor-intensive, as weed control was managed by densely planting

13608-841: The spread, but it is already present in some areas. It is also susceptible to both the beet leaf curl virus , which causes crinkling and stunting of the leaves and beet yellows virus . Continual research looks for varieties with resistance, as well as increased sugar yield. Sugar beet breeding research in the United States is most prominently conducted at various USDA Agricultural Research Stations, including one in Fort Collins, Colorado , headed by Linda Hanson and Leonard Panella; one in Fargo, North Dakota , headed by John Wieland; and one at Michigan State University in East Lansing, Michigan , headed by Rachel Naegele. Other economically important members of

13734-560: The subfamily Chenopodioideae : In the United States, genetically modified sugar beets, engineered for resistance to glyphosate , a herbicide marketed as Roundup, were developed by Monsanto as a genetically modified crop . In 2005, the US Department of Agriculture-Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service ( USDA - APHIS ) deregulated glyphosate-resistant sugar beets after it conducted an environmental assessment and determined glyphosate-resistant sugar beets were highly unlikely to become

13860-510: 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. Sugar beet Sugar beets are grown in climates that are too cold for sugarcane . In 2020, Russia, the United States, Germany, France and Turkey were the world's five largest sugar beet producers. In 2010–2011, Europe, and North America except Arctic territories failed to supply

13986-414: The success of sugar beet agriculture. A temperature ranging from 15 to 21 °C (59 to 70 °F) during the growing months is most favorable. In the absence of adequate irrigation, 460 mm (18 inches) of rainfall are necessary to raise an average crop. High winds are harmful, as they generally crust the land and prevent the young beets from coming through the ground. The best results are obtained along

14112-404: The sugar refining process, not to the beet sugar production process per se. There are two obvious methods to produce alcohol ( ethanol ) from sugar beet. The first method produces alcohol as a byproduct of manufacturing sugar. It is about fermenting the sugar beet molasses that are left after (the second) centrifugation. This strongly resembles the manufacture of rum from sugar cane molasses. In

14238-540: The temperature is high during the daytime, but where the nights are cool, the quality of the sugar beet is excellent. In Michigan , the long summer days from the relatively high latitude (the Lower Peninsula , where production is concentrated, lies between the 41st and 46th parallels North) and the influence of the Great Lakes result in satisfactory climatic conditions for sugar beet culture. Sebewaing, Michigan , lies in

14364-591: The time also act as a sugar refinery, but historically the beet sugar factory produced raw sugar and the sugar refinery refined raw sugar to create white sugar. In the 1960s, beet sugar processing was described as consisting of these steps. Nowadays, most sugar factories then refine the raw juice themselves, without moving it to a sugar refinery. The beet pulp is processed on site to become cattle fodder. The next steps to produce white sugar are not specific for producing sugar from sugar beet. They also apply to producing white sugar from sugar cane. As such, they belong to

14490-609: 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

14616-486: The trailers during transport. The world harvested 260,998,614 metric tons (256,900,000 long tons; 287,700,000 short tons) of sugar beets in 2022. The world's largest producer was Russia, with a 48,907,753 metric tons (48,100,000 long tons; 53,900,000 short tons) harvest. The average yield of sugar beet crops worldwide was 60.8 tonnes per hectare . The most productive sugar beet farms in the world, in 2022, were in Chile , with

14742-445: The water to pass through more freely than is desirable. Ideally, the soil should be deep, fairly fine and easily penetrable by the roots. It should also be capable of retaining moisture and at the same time admit of a free circulation of air and good drainage. Sugar beet crops exhaust the soil rapidly. Crop rotation is recommended and necessary. Normally, beets are grown in the same ground every third year, peas, beans or grain being raised

14868-599: The way to their coronation at the Cathedral of Reims . The Coronation of Charles X was the final time this happened as the July Revolution brought an end to the traditional coronation ceremony. In 1646, Louis II de Bourbon acquired the manorial rights to Fismes and bestowed them on César de Costentin de Tourville for his good services to the King. In 1647, the land was passed on to the eldest son of Cesar, François-Cesar. During

14994-571: 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

15120-428: 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

15246-490: Was named weiße schlesische Zuckerrübe , meaning white Silesian sugar beet. In about 1800, this cultivar boasted about 5–6% sucrose by (dry) weight. It would go on to be the progenitor of all modern sugar beets. The plant breeding process has continued since then, leading to a sucrose content of around 18% in modern varieties. Franz Karl Achard opened the world's first beet sugar factory in 1801, at Kunern , Silesia (now Konary, Poland). The idea to produce sugar from beet

15372-1013: 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

15498-521: Was present at the ceremony along with Meadville government and community members. Fismes' sister cities of Triuggio, Italy and Bad Oeynhausen, Germany were represented as well. Fismes is twinned with: 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

15624-495: Was soon introduced to France, whence the European sugar beet industry rapidly expanded. By 1840, about 5% of the world's sugar was derived from sugar beets, and by 1880, this number had risen more than tenfold to over 50%. In North America, the first commercial production started in 1879 at a farm in Alvarado, California . The sugar beet was introduced to Chile by German settlers around 1850. The sugar beet, like sugarcane , needs

15750-459: Was the mayor of Fismes, Doctor Genillon. Quarterly, 1 and 4 of Gules a dexter arm of argent armed with a sword the same surmounted by a helmet of azure quarter turned from profile; 2 and 3 barry of argent and azure of 10 pieces debruised by 3 chevrons of gules, the first écimé; over all an inescutcheon of azure with 3 persons armed in Or: at dexter with a lance, at centre with a sword and at sinister with

15876-596: Was the white beet. Despite Marggraf's success in isolating sugar from beets, it did not lead to commercial sugar production. Marggraf's student and successor Franz Karl Achard began plant breeding sugar beet in Kaulsdorf near Berlin in 1786. Achard started his plant breeding by evaluating 23 varieties of beet for sugar content. In the end he selected a local strain from Halberstadt in modern-day Saxony-Anhalt , Germany. Moritz Baron von Koppy and his son further selected white, conical tubers from this strain. The selection

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