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111-588: Bazeilles ( French pronunciation: [bazɛj] ) is a commune in the Ardennes department in the Grand Est region of northern France . On 1 January 2017, the former communes of Rubécourt-et-Lamécourt and Villers-Cernay were merged into Bazeilles. On 1 January 2024, the former commune of La Moncelle was merged into Bazeilles. The inhabitants of the commune are known as Bazeillais or Bazeillaises . The commune has been awarded three flowers by

222-421: 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

333-402: A POW, then, if he or she qualify as a protected person, he or she receives all the rights which a civilian receives under GCIV, but the party to the conflict may invoke Articles of GCIV to curtail those rights. The relevant Articles are 5 and 42. Part I. General Provisions ... Art. 5 Where in the territory of a Party to the conflict, the latter is satisfied that an individual protected person

444-576: 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

555-445: 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

666-537: 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

777-477: A competent tribunal has determined that an individual is not a lawful combatant , the detaining power may choose to accord the individual the rights and privileges of a prisoner of war as described in the Third Geneva Convention, but is not required to do so. An individual who is not a lawful combatant, who is not a national of a neutral state living in the belligerent territory, and who is not

888-646: A conflict is legally bound only to observe Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions. All parties are otherwise completely free to either apply or not apply any of the remaining Articles of the Conventions. Article 5 of the Third Geneva Convention states that the status of detainees whose combatant status is in doubt should be determined by a competent tribunal . Until such time, they must be treated as prisoners of war . After

999-431: 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

1110-589: 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,

1221-676: A group of small countries headed by Belgium—which opposed the very principle of the rights and duties of armies of occupation and demanded an unlimited right of resistance for the population of occupied territories. As a compromise, the Russian delegate, F. F. Martens , proposed the Martens Clause , which is included in the preamble to the 1899 Hague Convention II – Laws and Customs of War on Land . Similar wording has been incorporated into many subsequent treaties that cover extensions to humanitarian law. The Geneva Convention relative to

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1332-415: 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

1443-769: 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

1554-710: 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

1665-631: A national of a co-belligerent state , retains rights and privileges under the Fourth Geneva Convention and must be "treated with humanity and, in case of trial, shall not be deprived of the rights of fair and regular trial ". In the United States, the Military Commissions Act of 2006 codified the legal definition of this term and invested the U.S. President with broad discretion to determine whether

1776-524: A parole violator—who has been coerced into fighting, and who has been recaptured by the Power that detained him previously—is contained in the procedural guarantees to which he is entitled, pursuant to Article 85 of GCIII. In the opinion of Major Gary D. Brown, United States Air Force (USAF), this means that "[T]he Hague Convention specified that parole breakers would forfeit their right to be treated as prisoners of war if recaptured. The 1949 Geneva Convention

1887-691: A person may be designated an unlawful enemy combatant under United States law . The assumption that unlawful combatant status exists as a separate category to lawful combatant and civilian is contradicted by the findings of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in the Celebici Judgment. The judgment quoted the 1958 International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) commentary on

1998-496: A person under definite suspicion of activity hostile to the security of the Occupying Power, such person shall, in those cases where absolute military security so requires, be regarded as having forfeited rights of communication under the present Convention. In each case, such persons shall nevertheless be treated with humanity and, in case of trial, shall not be deprived of the rights of fair and regular trial prescribed by

2109-554: 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

2220-466: Is definitely suspected of or engaged in activities hostile to the security of the State, such individual person shall not be entitled to claim such rights and privileges under the present Convention as would, if exercised in the favour of such individual person, be prejudicial to the security of such State. Where in occupied territory an individual protected person is detained as a spy or saboteur , or as

2331-545: Is less direct on the issue. A recaptured parole violator under the Convention would be afforded the opportunity to defend himself against charges of parole breaking. In the interim, the accused violator would be entitled to P[o]W status". Persons not taking part in fighting in a non-interstate conflict are covered by Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions: Article 3 Under Common Article 3 of

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2442-441: Is not bound by the Convention are not protected by it. Nationals of a neutral State who find themselves in the territory of a belligerent State, and nationals of a co-belligerent State, shall not be regarded as protected persons while the State of which they are nationals has normal diplomatic representation in the State in whose hands they are. If the individual fulfills the criteria as a protected person, they are entitled to all

2553-411: Is that a lawful combatant (defined above) cannot be held personally responsible for violations of civilian laws that are permissible under the laws and customs of war; and if captured, a lawful combatant must be treated as a prisoner of war by the enemy under the conditions laid down in the Third Geneva Convention. If there is any doubt about whether a detained alleged combatant is a lawful combatant then

2664-402: 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

2775-589: The Battle of Bazeilles on 1 September 1870 the commune was the scene of intense fighting between units of French marines and Bavarian regiments. Under the command of Commander Lambert and Captains Aubert, Bourgey, Delaury, Picard and the Blue Division , in the Bourgerie Inn, a few hundred men and officers resisted until their ammunition was completely exhausted. This moment of history was illustrated by

2886-552: 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

2997-565: 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,

3108-664: The National Council of Towns and Villages in Bloom in the Competition of cities and villages in Bloom . Bazeilles is located some 4 km south-east of Sedan and 2 km west of Douzy . Access to the commune is by Route nationale 43 (N43) from Sedan in the west which passes through the north of the commune and changes to the D8043 before continuing east to Douzy. Exit [REDACTED]  3  Balan lies within

3219-482: 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,

3330-519: The UN Mercenary Convention . Article 2 makes it an offence to employ a mercenary and Article 3.1 states that "A mercenary, as defined in article 1 of the present Convention, who participates directly in hostilities or in a concerted act of violence, as the case may be, commits an offence for the purposes of the Convention". A combatant who is a POW, and who is subsequently paroled on the condition that he will not take up arms against

3441-749: 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

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3552-444: 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

3663-499: 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

3774-716: 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

3885-604: The "Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, and relating to the Protection of Victims of International Armed Conflicts" ( Protocol I ), combatants who do not wear a distinguishing mark still qualify as prisoners of war if they carry arms openly during military engagements, and while visible to the enemy when they are deploying to conduct an attack against them. There are several types of combatants who do not qualify as privileged combatants: Most unprivileged combatants who do not qualify for protection under

3996-588: 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,

4107-528: The 26 June 2008 attack on an American military convoy that killed three U.S. soldiers and their Afghan interpreter, and 27 October 2008 shooting down of a U.S. military helicopter during the War in Afghanistan (the conflict became non-interstate not long after the United States invasion of Afghanistan ended on 7 December 2001). The last time that American and British unlawful combatants were executed, after

4218-408: 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

4329-476: The Fourth Convention shall have the right at all times to the protection of Article 75 of this Protocol. In occupied territory, any such person, unless he is held as a spy, shall also be entitled, notwithstanding Article 5 of the Fourth Convention, to his rights of communication under that Convention. Under Article 47 of Protocol I (Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, and relating to

4440-878: The Fourth Geneva Convention: "Every person in enemy hands must be either a prisoner of war and, as such, be covered by the Third Convention; or a civilian covered by the Fourth Convention. There is no intermediate status; nobody in enemy hands can be outside the law". Thus, anyone not entitled to prisoner of war status maintains the same rights as a civilian, and must be prosecuted under domestic law. Neither status exists in non-international conflict, with all parties equally protected under International Humanitarian Law. Under international humanitarian law applicable in an interstate conflict, combatants may be classified into one of two categories: privileged or unprivileged. In that sense, privileged means

4551-524: 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

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4662-577: The Geneva Conventions, persons under physical control or custody by a party to the conflict should be treated humanely, and if tried "sentences must ... be pronounced by a regularly constituted court". Nations that have ratified Protocol II of the Geneva Conventions are legally bound by Article 6 of the Protocol, which extends how the prosecution of persons should be carried out. For instance, defendants cannot be compelled to testify against themselves and sentenced to capital punishment if they are under

4773-561: The Laws and Customs of War on Land , 18 October 1907, but did not include Article 12, which provides: "Prisoners of war liberated on parole and recaptured bearing arms against the Government to whom they had pledged their honour, or against the allies of that Government, forfeit their right to be treated as prisoners of war, and can be brought before the courts". Nevertheless, contained in the commentary on GCIII: The only safeguard available to

4884-565: 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

4995-716: 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

5106-451: The Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War , 12 August 1949 (GCIV), if they qualify as a protected person . Article 4. Persons protected by the Convention are those who, at a given moment and in any manner whatsoever, find themselves, in case of a conflict or occupation, in the hands of a Party to the conflict or Occupying Power of which they are not nationals. Nationals of a State which

5217-604: The Protection of Victims of International Armed Conflicts) it is stated in the first sentence "A mercenary shall not have the right to be a combatant or a prisoner of war". On 4 December 1989 the United Nations passed resolution 44/34 the International Convention against the Recruitment, Use, Financing and Training of Mercenaries . It entered into force on 20 October 2001 and is usually known as

5328-467: The Third Geneva Convention do so under the Fourth Geneva Convention (GCIV), which concerns protected civilians, until they have had a fair and regular trial . If found guilty at a regular trial, they can be punished under the civilian laws of the detaining power. The term "unlawful combatant" is a legal term only applicable in interstate conflicts and has been used for the past century in legal literature, military manuals, and case law. However, unlike

5439-470: The Treatment of Prisoners of War, 12 August 1949 (GCIII) of 1949 defines the requirements for a captive to be eligible for treatment as a POW. A lawful combatant is a person who commits belligerent acts, and, when captured, is treated as a POW. An unlawful combatant is someone who commits belligerent acts but does not qualify for POW status under GCIII Articles 4 and 5. Article 4 A. Prisoners of war, in

5550-657: 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

5661-634: 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

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5772-475: The age of 18, pregnant women, or mothers of young children. Since the status of a non-state armed group is not legally recognized in a non-interstate armed conflict, defendants can be sentenced by the legal system of either the territorial or intervening third state for simply taking part in combat against them. On 7 October 2021, a former Taliban commander was indicted by a federal grand jury in New York for

5883-521: The belligerent power (or co-belligerent powers) that had held him as a prisoner, is considered a parole violator if he breaks said condition. He is regarded as guilty of a breach of the laws of war, unless there are mitigating circumstances such as coercion by his state to break his parole. As with other combatants, they are still protected by the Third Geneva Convention (GCIII), until a competent tribunal finds them in violation of their parole. The Geneva Convention (1929) made no mention of parole, but as it

5994-452: 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,

6105-410: 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

6216-535: 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

6327-565: The combatant must be held as a prisoner of war until his or her status has been determined by a competent tribunal. If that tribunal rules that a combatant is an unlawful combatant then the person's status changes to that of a civilian which may give them some rights under the Fourth Geneva Convention. A civilian "in the hands" of the enemy often gains rights through the Geneva Convention Relative to

6438-546: The commune had 2,394 inhabitants. The commune has a number of buildings and sites that are registered as historical monuments: Jacques Rousseau: Bazeilles, origins and mutations , 2002. ISBN   2-84458-008-4 . 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

6549-420: The commune just north of the village and continues east. A railway passes through the south of the commune from east to south-west with no station in the commune. The next station to the east is at Carignan and the next to the west is at Sedan. The commune has a significant sized urban are and a large industrial estate with a very large Unilin plant. The rest of the commune is farmland. The Meuse river forms

6660-592: The commune which leads to the D764 that goes south to the village. The N43 also links with the beginning of the N58 in the commune which goes north. Other access roads include the D8043A from Balan in the north-west which goes to the village then continues east to join the D8043. The D129 comes from Daigny in the north and passes through the village before continuing south to Remilly-Aillicourt . The D17 from Balan passes through

6771-420: 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

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6882-544: 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

6993-464: 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

7104-464: 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

7215-492: 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

7326-543: 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

7437-572: The famous painting by Alphonse-Marie-Adolphe de Neuville painted in 1873: The last cartridges and conserved in Bazeilles in the House of the last cartridge . During the battle, French civilians actively participated by firing on Bavarian troops and tending to the wounded. Angered by the casualties the civilians inflicted, the Bavarian soldiers killed many of them, setting fire to houses from which

7548-558: 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

7659-548: 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,

7770-421: 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

7881-437: 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

7992-653: 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

8103-552: 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 ,

8214-414: 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

8325-546: 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

8436-480: 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,

8547-486: 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

8658-429: 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

8769-427: 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

8880-425: 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

8991-521: 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

9102-523: 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

9213-631: 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

9324-462: The party does not use Article 5 of GCIV, the party may invoke Article 42 of GCIV and use internment to detain the unlawful combatant. For those nations that have ratified Protocol I of the Geneva Conventions, are also bound by Article 45.3 of that protocol which curtails GCIV Article 5. Any person who has taken part in hostilities, who is not entitled to prisoner‑of‑war status and who does not benefit from more favourable treatment in accordance with

9435-403: 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

9546-415: The present Convention. They shall also be granted the full rights and privileges of a protected person under the present Convention at the earliest date consistent with the security of the State or Occupying Power, as the case may be. ... Section II. Aliens in the territory of a party to the conflict ... Art. 42. The internment or placing in assigned residence of protected persons may be ordered only if

9657-468: The protections mentioned in GCIV. Under the meaning of Article 4 of GCVI, civilians under their own national authority and of a state not party to the GCIV are not protected persons. Likewise, neutral nationals living in a belligerent country and allied citizens are not protected persons under GCIV as long their states have normal diplomatic relations with a belligerent power. If a combatant does not qualify as

9768-495: 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

9879-487: The retainment of prisoner of war status and impunity for the conduct prior to capture. Thus, combatants that have violated certain terms of the IHL may lose their status and become unprivileged combatants either ipso jure (merely by having committed the act) or by decision of a competent court or tribunal. In the relevant treaties, the distinction between privileged and unprivileged is not made textually; international law uses

9990-489: 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

10101-469: 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

10212-727: 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

10323-406: 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

10434-539: The same time an attempt by the Schützen-Regiment 86 (the other infantry regiment of the 10th Panzer Division) in front of Wadelincourt succeeded and the Schützen-Regiment 69 then swerved then to that sector. Party per fess, at 1 party per pale Or, with 3 points of flame Gules and Azure, an anchor of Or; at 2 Gules, a Legion of Honour proper. List of Successive Mayors In 2017

10545-531: The security of the Detaining Power makes it absolutely necessary. It is likely that if a competent tribunal under GCIII Article 5 finds they are an unlawful combatant , and if they are a protected person under GCIV, the Party to the conflict will invoke GCIV Article 5. In this case, the unlawful combatant does not have rights under the present Convention as granting them those rights would be prejudicial to

10656-413: The security of the concerned state. They do, however, retain the right "... to be treated with humanity and, in case of trial, shall not be deprived of the rights of fair and regular trial prescribed by the present Convention", If, after a fair and regular trial , an individual is found guilty of a crime, he or she can be punished by whatever lawful methods are available to the party to the conflict. If

10767-438: The sense of the present Convention, are persons belonging to one of the following categories, who have fallen into the power of the enemy: B. The following shall likewise be treated as prisoners of war under the present Convention: Article 5 These terms thus divide combatants in a war zone into two classes: those in armies and organised militias and the like ( lawful combatants ), and those who are not. The critical distinction

10878-421: The shots were fired. By midday, the whole village was on fire. Captured Franc-tireur partisans, along with other civilians who were considered unlawful combatants , were later executed. Although French propaganda showed massacres of men, women and children, an official French investigation found that only 39 civilians from Bazeilles died. An additional 150 people (10% of the village population) died from injuries in

10989-517: The south-western border of the commune as it flows north-west to eventually join the Hollands Diep at Lage Zwaluwe ( Netherlands ). The Chiers river flows from the north-east forming part of the south-eastern border before joining the Meuse in the south-eastern corner of the commune. The Ruisseau de la Givinne flows from the north through the centre of the commune before joining the Meuse in

11100-589: The south. The name Bazeilles would have appeared in the 6th or 7th century and comes from a variation of the Latin word Basilicatum meaning "church". Bazeilles appears as Bazeille on the 1750 Cassini Map and the same on the 1790 version. In the 13th century Bazeilles was a small lordship dependent on the Abbey of Mouzon and the Reims Cathedral before being united with the lordship of Sedan-Balan under

11211-575: The subsequent months. Bazeilles was awarded the Legion of Honour on 9 October 1900. Bazeilles is one of the communes where is the action of the novel "La débâcle" by Emile Zola is set. During the Second World War and during the Phoney War , the command post of the 5th Light Cavalry Division under General Jacques-Marie Chanoine was established in Bazeilles. Then the Battle of France

11322-476: 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. Unlawful combatants The Geneva Conventions apply in wars between two or more opposing sovereign states . They do not apply to civil wars between state forces, whether territorial or third state, and non-state armed groups . A state in such

11433-436: The term combatant exclusively in the sense of what is here termed "privileged combatant". If there is any doubt as to whether the person benefits from combatant status, they must be held as a POW until they have faced a competent tribunal (Article 5 of the Third Geneva Convention (GC III) to decide the issue. The following categories of combatants qualify for prisoner-of-war status on capture: For countries that have signed

11544-666: The terms "combatant", "prisoner of war", and "civilian", the term "unlawful combatant" is not mentioned in either the Hague or the Geneva Conventions. So while the former terms are well understood and clear under international law, the term "unlawful combatant" is not. At the First Hague Conference , which opened on 6 May 1899, there was a disagreement between the Great Powers —which considered francs-tireurs unlawful combatants subject to execution on capture—and

11655-609: 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

11766-580: 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

11877-588: The yoke of Gilles II of Hierges. The new lordship of Sedan-Balan-Bazeilles become the "starting point" of the future Principality of Sedan . It was possible that a small castle guarded the road to Douzy and Yvois (Carignan) and would have been in the northern part of the park of the current Chateau of Orival along the Givonne (rue du General Lebrun). From 1560 to 1642 Bazeilles was part of the Principality of Sedan. Related article: Battle of Sedan . During

11988-428: 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

12099-1053: 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

12210-664: Was supplemental to the Hague conventions, it relied on the wording of Hague to address this issue. The authors of GCIII, 1949, decided to include a reference with some modification to parole, because during the Second World War, some belligerent countries did permit such release to some extent. Article 21 of GCIII (1949) reproduces the Articles 10 and 11 of the Hague IV: Regulations Respecting

12321-520: Was triggered on 10 May 1940 and the Cavalry Division left for Belgium . A few days later Bazeilles was taken by the 10th Panzer Division under Ferdinand Schaal . Bazeilles was the initial base for the Schützen-Regiment 69 (Infantry from the 10th Panzer-Division), who, on the afternoon of 13 May 1940, launched an attack to cross the Meuse . The attempt was thwarted by the French artillery. At

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