The Council of Paris is the deliberative body responsible for the governing of Paris, the capital of France. It possesses simultaneously the powers of a municipal council and those of a departmental council for the département de Paris, as defined by the so-called PLM Law of 1982 that redefined the governance of Paris, Lyon and Marseille. Paris is the only territorial collectivity in France to be at once a commune and a département. The Mayor of Paris presides over the Council of Paris and therefore holds in her hands the powers of mayor and of president of the departmental council. There are presently 163 councillors for Paris.
History
Although the history of Paris is long, that of its municipal government, in its present form, is less than half a century old. Paris and its environs were always governed directly by the highest Frenchpolity of the time: the Crown before the French Revolution, and a state-appointed préfet afterwards. The office of mayor of Paris existed for brief periods during the 18th and 19th centuries, but it was not an institution of government before 1977. From its creation in 1977 to 2019, Paris functioned as both a commune and as a département, and had a unique method for governing both; the Council of Paris, with the Mayor of Paris as its president, met either as a municipal council or as a departmental council depending on the issue to be debated. In 2017, the National Assembly passed a law merging the functions of the commune and department into the City of Paris, which came into effect on January 1, 2019. The modern administrative organization of Paris still retains some traces of its previous incarnation as the government of the Seinedépartement. The Paris Police Prefecture, which also has authority over the fire brigades of Paris, for example, has jurisdiction extending to the petite couronne of Paris, the three bordering départements for some operations such as fire protection and rescue operations, and the Préfecture de Police is still directed by France's national government. Paris has no municipal police force, although it does have its own brigade of traffic wardens.
The commune is divided into 17 electoral districts representing the 20 municipal arrondissements in which voters simultaneously elect members for a district council and the city council. For the 2020 municipal election, arrondissements 1, 2, 3 & 4 were grouped to create a single electoral district called "Paris Centre". No district elects fewer than 10 district members and 3 council members nor more than 40 district members and 18 council members. There are 354 district council members and 163 council members in total. A selection of members on each district council — roughly half the number of seats of their respective district councils, and the name at the top of the party lists in those districts — are elected and serve simultaneously as city council members, which form the municipal council called the Council of Paris. The council elects the Mayor of Paris the week following the municipal election requiring an absolute majority of councillors in the first or second round, but by a plurality in a third round if required. The districts and city council are elected using closedparty-list proportional representation in a two-round system with a majority bonus. A list which garners an absolute majority in the first round in which at least 25% of registered voters participates automatically wins half of all seats in the arrondissement, with the remaining half of seats distributed proportionally using the D'Hondt method to all lists receiving over 5% of the vote, including the winning list. If no list meets these requirements in the first round, a second round is scheduled a week later. All lists which won over 10% of the vote in the first round are qualified to run in the second round. Furthermore, the remaining lists which won at least 5% of the vote in the first can merge with qualified lists for the second round, but are not required to do so. In the second round, only a plurality is needed to win the majority bonus. This electoral system results in the possibility that a list may end up winning a majority of seats in an arrondissement without winning an absolute majority of votes.
