Mayor (France) in the context of "Communes in France"

A commune (French pronunciation: [kɔmyn] ) is a level of administrative division in the French Republic. French communes are analogous to civil townships and incorporated municipalities, and particularly to the New England towns, in Canada and the United States; Gemeinden in Germany; comuni in Italy; municipios in Spain; or civil parishes in the United Kingdom. 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 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 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.

Pierre Méhaignerie (born 4 May 1939) is a French politician. He is a former deputy of the Ille-et-Vilaine's 5th constituency and the former mayor of Vitré (re-elected in March 2008).

Jack Mathieu Émile Lang (French pronunciation: [dʒak matjø emil lɑ̃ɡ]; born 2 September 1939) is a French politician. A member of the Socialist Party, he served as Minister of Culture from 1981 to 1986 and again from 1988 to 1993, as well as Minister of National Education from 1992 to 1993 and 2000 to 2002.

He was also Mayor of Blois from 1989 until his resignation in 2000. Lang is best known for originating the Fête de la Musique in 1982 as Culture Minister, an all day public music festival which occurs yearly on 21 June in France and throughout the world. Since 2013 he has been president of the Arab World Institute in Paris.

In France, a municipal arrondissement (French: arrondissement municipal [aʁɔ̃dismɑ̃ mynisipal]) is a subdivision of the commune, and is used in the country's three largest cities: Paris, Lyon and Marseille. It functions as an even lower administrative division, with its own mayor. Although usually referred to simply as "arrondissements", they should not be confused with departmental arrondissements, which are groupings of communes within one département.

Jean-Pierre Chevènement (French: [ʒɑ̃ pjɛʁ ʃəvɛnmɑ̃]; born 9 March 1939) is a French politician who served as a minister in the 1980s and 1990s best known for his candidacy in the 2002 French presidential election. After serving as mayor of Belfort, he was elected to the Senate for the Territoire de Belfort in 2008. As a cofounder of the Socialist Party (PS) and founder of the Citizen and Republican Movement (MRC), he is a significant figure of the French Left.

Émile François Loubet (French: [emil lubɛ]; 30 December 1838 – 20 December 1929) was the 45th Prime Minister of France from February to December 1892 and later President of France from 1899 to 1906.

Trained in law, he became mayor of Montélimar, where he was noted as a forceful orator. He was elected to the Chamber of Deputies in 1876 and the Senate in 1885. He was appointed as a Republican minister under Carnot and Ribot. He was briefly Prime Minister of France in 1892. As President, he saw the successful Paris Exhibition of 1900, and the forging of the Entente Cordiale with the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, resolving their sharp differences over the Boer War and the Dreyfus Affair.

Ludovic Pajot (born 18 November 1993) is a French politician who served as the member of the National Assembly for the 10th constituency of Pas-de-Calais from 2017 to 2021. A member of the National Rally (until 2018 named National Front), he has been Mayor of Bruay-la-Buissière since 2020. At age 24 in 2017, Pajot was the youngest member of the 15th National Assembly. He previously was a municipal councillor in Béthune, first elected in 2014.