Constitutional Council (France)
The Constitutional Council is the highest constitutional authority in France. It was established by the Constitution of the Fifth Republic on 4 October 1958 and its duty is to ensure that constitutional principles and rules are upheld, it is housed in Paris. Its main activity is to rule on whether proposed statutes conform with the Constitution, after they have been voted by Parliament and before they are signed into law by the President of the French Republic. However, since 1 March 2010, individual citizens who are party to a trial or a lawsuit have been able to ask for the Council to review whether the law applied in the case is constitutional. In 1971, the Council ruled that conformity with the Constitution entails conformity with two other texts referred to in the preamble of the Constitution, the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen and the preamble of the constitution of the Fourth Republic, both of which list constitutional rights; this article refers extensively to individual articles in the Constitution of France.
The reader should refer to the official translation of the Constitution on the site of the French National Assembly. Another recommended reading is the Constitutional Council overview on the Council web site; the Government of France consists of an executive branch, a legislative branch, a judicial branch. The judicial branch is, unlike for instance the federal judiciary of the United States under the Supreme Court, not organized into a single hierarchy, some of its entities have advisory functions. For historical reasons there has long been a hostility to having anything resembling a "Supreme Court"—that is, a powerful court able to quash legislation. Whether the Council is a court is a subject of academic discussion, but some scholars consider it the supreme court of France; the Constitution of the French Fifth Republic distinguishes two distinct kinds of legislation: statute law, voted upon by Parliament and government regulations, which are enacted by the Prime Minister and his government as decrees and other regulations.
Article 34 of the Constitution exhaustively lists the areas reserved for statute law: these include, for instance, criminal law. Any regulation issued by the executive in the areas constitutionally reserved for statute law is unconstitutional unless it has been authorized as secondary legislation by a statute. Any citizen with an interest in the case can obtain the cancellation of these regulations by the Council of State, on grounds that the executive has exceeded its authority. Furthermore, the Council of State can quash regulations on grounds that they violate existing statute law, constitutional rights or the "general principles of law". In addition, new acts can be referred to the Constitutional Council by a petition just prior to being signed into law by the President of the Republic; the most common circumstance for this is that 60 opposition members of the National Assembly, or 60 opposition members of the Senate request such a review. If the Prime Minister thinks that some clauses of existing statute law instead belong to the domain of regulations, he can ask the Council to reclassify these clauses as regulations.
Traditionally, France refused to accept the idea that courts could quash legislation enacted by Parliament. This goes back to the French revolutionary era: pre-revolutionary courts had used their power not to register laws and thus prevent their application for political purposes, had blocked reforms. French courts were prohibited from making rulings of a general nature, it seemed that if courts could quash legislation after it had been enacted and taken into account by citizens, it would introduce legal uncertainties: how could a citizen plan his or her actions according to what is legal or not if laws could a posteriori be found not to hold? Yet, in the late 20th century, courts administrative courts, began applying the consequences of international treaties, including law of the European Union, as superior to national law. A 2009 reform, effective on 1 March 2010, enables parties to a lawsuit or trial to question the constitutionality of the law, being applied to them; the procedure, known as question prioritaire de constitutionnalité, is broadly as follows: the question is raised before the trial judge and, if it has merit, it is forwarded to the appropriate supreme court.
The supreme court submits them to the Constitutional Council. If the Constitutional Council rules a law to be unconstitutional, this law is struck down from the law books; the Council has two main areas of power: The first is the supervision of elections, both presidential and parliamentary and ensuring the legitimacy of referendums. They issue the official results, they ensure proper conduct and fairness, they see that campaign spending limits are adhered to; the Council is the supreme authority in these matters. The Council can declare an election to be invalid if improperly conducted, or if the elected candidate used illegal methods, or if he spent for his campaign over the legal limits; the second area of Council power is the interpretation of the fundamental
Richard Ferrand
Richard Ferrand is a French politician serving as President of the National Assembly since 2018. He has been the member of the National Assembly for Finistère's 6th constituency since 2012. A longtime member of the Socialist Party, he was the General Secretary of La République En Marche! from October 2016 and became leader of the La République En Marche! group of the National Assembly in June 2017. Richard Ferrand was born on 1 July 1962 in France. Ferrand graduated high school in Bünde and studied German and Law at Toulouse 1 University Capitole and Université Paris-Descartes where he became a PS member at the age of 18. After leaving university, Ferrand worked as a journalist for multiple publications including Center Presse, Auto Moto, Vie publique, La Dépêche du Midi and Le Monde. In 1991, Ferrand became the communications advisor for Kofi Yamgnane, the then- secretary of state to the Minister of Social Affairs and Integration. Richard Ferrard joined the Socialist Party in 1980 and was elected as the councillor in the township of Carhaix-Plouguer in 1998 as his first elected office.
In the municipal elections in 2001 and 2008, Ferrand lost in both times, obtaining 31% of the vote in 2008. In the 2010 regional elections, he was one of the PS nominees for the Finistère department, he became councillor for the region on 21 March 2010 and has since chaired the socialist and related group. In 2007, Ferrand ran for Finistère's 6th constituency under the PS banner, he lost to Christian Ménard. In 2012, Ferrand ran in the same constituency for PS where he got 32.2% of the vote in the first round and 58.3% of the vote in the second round. In the National Assembly, Ferrand was a member of the SER group and sits on the Social Affairs Committee, he has never worked in the agricultural or agri-food sector, but is co-chairman of the agricultural and agro-food industries group. He involves himself in social issues and the use of cheaper labour than available. While on the Social Affairs Committee, Ferrand was an EU-appointed rapporteur on resolutions around workers and the use of cheaper European labor.
In his report, he stated that European workers feel detached due to the lack of social cohesion and the use of cheaper labour to replace them. He advocates measures to limit the replacement of workers. Despite Ferrand's opposition to the Bonnets Rouges movement against the eco-tax, started by the Fillon government and further expanded upon by the Ayrault government, he took a stand against the expansions, saying they underline the complexity of the tax system, he supports amendments to the eco-tax. After there was a postponement of the eco-tax and other Breton politicians asked Minister of Energy, Ségolène Royal to rethink the tax plan. On 3 October 2014, the Prime Minister Manuel Valls appointed him along with the minister of economy, Emmanuel Macron to work on a plan to reform regulations based around labour, he was tasked with looking at the "legal framework that restricts labour from developing" while paying attention to the different situations from many different regions. After consulting many trade unions and other associations, he submitted the report that stresses that reforming the regulated labor market is needed but "reform, don't break, this includes twenty-eight proposals that are aimed at promoting young people's access to the job market."This reform was put to the National Assembly where it was amended by the members of the assembly which resulted in the "Act for Growth and Equal Opportunity" or the Macron law, lobbied against by unions and other organizations.
Ferrand was appointed as the general rapporteur, one of the biggest reforms within the first five years of President Hollande's term with over 300 articles and sectors such as: transport, labor courts and qualified professions being reformed. More than one hundred and eleven hours went into debate in the National Assembly over the reform; the text was adopted including measures that were not there but added during parliamentary debate such as: Letting commercial stores open on Sundays, liberalization of transport services and encouraging qualified professions to allow young people into the profession. On 16 October 2016, Ferrand was appointed General Secretary of En Marche! by Emmanuel Macron, someone he worked with when he was the minister for Economy. The following month, Ferrand resigned from leading the PS group in the regional council for Finistère, confirmed that he quit the PS on 9 May 2017. On 24 June 2017, it was announced that Ferrand was elected leader of La République En Marche! group in the National Assembly with 306 votes and 2 abstentions.
Media related to Richard Ferrand at Wikimedia Commons
Conseil d'État (France)
In France, the Council of State is a body of the French national government that acts both as legal adviser of the executive branch and as the supreme court for administrative justice. Established in 1799 by Napoleon as a successor to the King's Council, it is located in the Palais-Royal in Paris and is made up of top-level legal officers; the Vice President of the Council of State ranks 9th as the most important civil servant in France. Members of the Conseil D'État are part of a Grand Corps of the French State; the Conseil D'État recruits among the top ranking students graduating from the École nationale d'administration. A General Session of the Council of State is presided over by the Prime Minister or, in his absence, the Minister of Justice. However, since the real presidency of the Council is held by the Vice-President, he presides all but the most ceremonial assemblies; this is done for obvious reasons pertaining to the separation of powers. Other members of the Council include, by decreasing order of importance: Department heads Councillors ordinary Councillors extraordinary Masters of requests Master of requests extraordinary Senior masters Masters The Vice-President is appointed by Order-in-Council on the recommendation of the Minister of Justice and is selected from among the Council's department heads or councillors ordinary.
Division heads are appointed and selected from among the councillors ordinary. Councillors ordinary, masters of requests, senior masters are appointed based on seniority from the preceding rank. Appointees from outside the Council may include administrative law judges or may come from outside the justice system. Masters are recruited from among the graduates of France's National Administration Academy; the Council sits in the Palais Royal located in Paris. The Council is divided into 7 divisions: Administrative Claims — see below. Report and Studies: writes the annual report, conducts studies and helps to oversee judgments and verdicts are carried out. Finances, the Interior and Social Security, Public Works and Administrative Issues review any and all Cabinet-issued orders and statutory instruments and examine and sign off on all Orders of Council; these reviews, though mandatory, are not binding. The Council of State studies legal issues and problems brought before the Cabinet. In addition, it is responsible for carrying out administrative court inspections.
The Council of State originates from the 13th century by which time the King's Court had split into three sections, one of, the King's Council, which too broke up into three distinct parts: the Conseil secret'Privy Council', the Conseil privé'Private Council', Conseil des finances'Council of Finances'. Reorganized under Louis XIV into two major groupings, it was the Conseil d'État privé, finances et direction, the direct ancestor of the Council of State, it brought together legal experts to advise the King on claims against the Crown. Established in 1557, this was the largest of the King's Councils made up of France's High Chancellor, lords of peerage and Secretaries of State, the Comptroller-General, 30 Councillors of State, 80 masters of requests, the Intendants of Finance; the judicial portion of the Council was known as the Conseil d'État Conseil des parties. The kings, who had the power to dispense justice and hand down judgments as the court of last resort, delegated this judicial power to royal courts and parlements.
But the French king still retained the power to override them at will. French kings maintained their privilege to decide major issues and hand down judgements when administrative acts were in dispute; the judgments of the King's Council of State were regarded as being issued under the King's residual proper jurisdiction, that is, the sovereign's reserved power to dispense justice in certain matters. Legal advisors assisted the King in developing new laws and, by delegated jurisdiction, directly exercised sovereign rights. For more on French government administration during the Old Regime, see Ancien Régime in France; the current Council of State was established by the French Consulate government in 1799 as a judicial body mandated to adjudicate claims against the State and assist in the drafting of important laws. The First Consul presided over Council sessions, the Council performed many of the functions of a Cabinet. After the Bourbon Restoration, the Council was retained as an administrative court but without its former prominence.
Its role was more defined by an 1872 Act of Parliament. Certain types of statutory instruments must be examined by the Council and receive its advisory approval, including: All draft legislation proposed by non-parliamentary members and prior to being introduced before Parliament. Orders-in-council, signed by the Prime Minister and cabinet ministers. A statutory law will authorize, prescribe, or prohibit an action defined in broad terms and require a government order to define its scope and a
Foreign alliances of France
The foreign alliances of France have a long and complex history spanning more than a millennium. One traditional characteristic of the French diplomacy of alliances has been the "Alliance de revers", aiming at allying with countries situated on the opposite side or "in the back" of an adversary, in order to open a second front encircling the adversary and thus re-establish a balance of power. Another has been the alliance with local populations, against other European colonial powers. Over the centuries, France has been looking for Eastern allies, as a counterbalance to Continental enemies. Throughout French history, this was the case against Austria-Hungary, Spain or Prussia: the Abbasid–Carolingian alliance, the Franco-Hungarian alliance and Franco-Ottoman alliance, the Franco-American alliance, the Franco-Russian Alliance. In particular, the desire to counter German power has been a major motivating force leading France to create Eastern alliances. Soon after the Second World War, good relations between France and the Soviet Union were again seen by Charles de Gaulle as an "Alliance de revers" to counter Germany.
France has a strong tradition of alliance with autochthonous populations in order to resist a powerful opponent. In the American continent, France was the first to identify that cooperation with local tribes would be strategically significant, before England started to adopt this strategy. An important Franco-Indian alliance centered on the Great Lakes and the Illinois country took place during the French and Indian War; the alliance involved French settlers on the one side, the Abenaki, Menominee, Mississauga, Sioux, Huron-Petun, Potawatomi etc... on the other. The French mixed and inter-married with the Indians, which facilitated exchanges and the development of such alliances. Through these alliances with the Indians, the French were able to maintain for over 150 years a strong position in the New World at the expense of the British, who had much more difficulties in making Indian allies. In India, the French General Dupleix was allied to Murzapha Jung in the Deccan, Chanda Sahib in the Carnatic Wars, in the conflict against Robert Clive.
The French succeeded in the 1746 Battle of Madras, the French and Indians fought together and vanquished Anwaruddin in 1749, but failed in the Battle of Arcot in 1751 and surrendered in 1752. The French again had a success at the capture of Fort St. David in 1758 under Lally, but were defeated at Masulipatam and Wandewash. In 1782, Louis XVI sealed an alliance with the Peshwa Madhu Rao Narayan; as a consequence Bussy moved his troops to Isle de France and contributed to the French effort in India in 1783. Suffren became the ally of Hyder Ali in the Second Anglo-Mysore War against British rules in India, in 1782–1783, fighting the British fleet on the coasts of India and Ceylon. Between February 1782 until June 1783, Suffren fought the English admiral Sir Edward Hughes, collaborated with the rulers of Mysore. Suffren fought in the Battle of Sadras on February 17, 1782, the Battle of Providien on April 12 near Trincomalee, the Battle of Negapatam on July 6 off Cuddalore, after which Suffren seized upon the anchorage of Trincomalee compelling the small British garrison to surrender.
An army of 3,000 French soldiers collaborated with Hyder Ali to capture Cuddalore. The Battle of Trincomalee took place near that port on September 3; these battles can be seen as the last battles of the Franco-British conflict that encompassed the American War of Independence, would cease with the signature of the Treaty of Versailles establishing peace and recognizing America independence. Some French alliances were purely tactical and short term during the period of the Napoleonic Wars. Napoleon Bonaparte had launched the French Invasion of Egypt in 1798 and fought against the Ottomans to establish a French presence in the Middle East, with the ultimate dream of linking with a Muslim enemy of the British in India, Tippu Sahib, in order to oust the British from the Indian subcontinent. After having failed a first time, Napoleon entered into a Franco-Ottoman alliance and a Franco-Persian alliance in order to create an overland access for his troops to India. Following the visit of the Persian Envoy Mirza Mohammed Reza-Qazvini to Napoleon, the Treaty of Finkenstein formalized the alliance on 4 May 1807, in which France supported Persia's claim to Georgia, promising to act so that Russia would surrender the territory.
In exchange, Persia was to fight Great Britain, to allow France to cross the Persian territory to reach India. Hamel, Catherine. La commémoration de l’alliance franco-russe: La création d’une culture matérielle populaire, 1890-1914.
Departments of France
In the administrative divisions of France, the department is one of the three levels of government below the national level, between the administrative regions and the commune. Ninety-six departments are in metropolitan France, five are overseas departments, which are classified as regions. Departments are further subdivided into 334 arrondissements, themselves divided into cantons; each department is administered by an elected body called a departmental council. From 1800 to April 2015, these were called general councils; each council has a president. Their main areas of responsibility include the management of a number of social and welfare allowances, of junior high school buildings and technical staff, local roads and school and rural buses, a contribution to municipal infrastructures. Local services of the state administration are traditionally organised at departmental level, where the prefect represents the government; the departments were created in 1790 as a rational replacement of Ancien Régime provinces with a view to strengthen national unity.
All of them were named after physical geographical features, rather than after historical or cultural territories which could have their own loyalties. The division of France into departments was a project identified with the French revolutionary leader the Abbé Sieyès, although it had been discussed and written about by many politicians and thinkers; the earliest known suggestion of it is from 1764 in the writings of d'Argenson. They have inspired similar divisions in some of them former French colonies. Most French departments are assigned a two-digit number, the "Official Geographical Code", allocated by the Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques. Overseas departments have a three-digit number; the number is used, for example, in the postal code, was until used for all vehicle registration plates. While residents use the numbers to refer to their own department or a neighbouring one, more distant departments are referred to by their names, as few people know the numbers of all the departments.
For example, inhabitants of Loiret might refer to their department as "the 45". In 2014, President François Hollande proposed to abolish departmental councils by 2020, which would have maintained the departments as administrative divisions, to transfer their powers to other levels of governance; this reform project has since been abandoned. The first French territorial departments were proposed in 1665 by Marc-René d'Argenson to serve as administrative areas purely for the Ponts et Chaussées infrastructure administration. Before the French Revolution, France gained territory through the annexation of a mosaic of independent entities. By the close of the Ancien Régime, it was organised into provinces. During the period of the Revolution, these were dissolved in order to weaken old loyalties; the modern departments, as all-purpose units of the government, were created on 4 March 1790 by the National Constituent Assembly to replace the provinces with what the Assembly deemed a more rational structure.
Their boundaries served two purposes: Boundaries were chosen to break up France's historical regions in an attempt to erase cultural differences and build a more homogeneous nation. Boundaries were set so that every settlement in the country was within a day's ride of the capital of a department; this was a security measure, intended to keep the entire national territory under close control. This measure was directly inspired by the Great Terror, during which the government had lost control of many rural areas far from any centre of government; the old nomenclature was avoided in naming the new departments. Most were named after other physical features. Paris was in the department of Seine. Savoy became the department of Mont-Blanc; the number of departments 83, had been increased to 130 by 1809 with the territorial gains of the Republic and of the First French Empire. Following Napoleon's defeats in 1814–1815, the Congress of Vienna returned France to its pre-war size and the number of departments was reduced to 86.
In 1860, France acquired the County of Nice and Savoy, which led to the creation of three new departments. Two were added from the new Savoyard territory, while the department of Alpes-Maritimes was created from Nice and a portion of the Var department; the 89 departments were given numbers based on the alphabetical order of their names. The department of Bas-Rhin and parts of Meurthe, Moselle and Haut-Rhin were ceded to the German Empire in 1871, following France's defeat in the Franco-Prussian War. A small part of Haut-Rhin became known as the Territoire de Belfort; when France regained the ceded departments after World War I, the Territoire de Belfort was not re-integrated into Haut-Rhin. In 1922, it became France's 90th department; the Lorraine departments were not changed back to their original boundaries, a new Moselle department was created in the regaine
France–Africa relations
France–Africa relations cover a period of several centuries, starting around in the Middle Ages, have been influential to both regions. Following the invasion of Spain by the Berber Commander Tariq ibn Ziyad in 711, during the 8th century Arab and Berber armies invaded Southern France, as far as Poitiers and the Rhône valley as far as Avignon, Autun, until the turning point of the Battle of Tours in 732. Cultural exchanges followed. In the 10th century, the French monk Gerbert d'Aurillac, who became the first French Pope Sylvester II in 999, traveled to Spain to learn about Islamic culture, may have studied at the University of Al-Qarawiyyin in Fez, Morocco. France would become again threatened by the proximity of the expanding Moroccan Almoravid Empire in the 11th and 12th centuries. According to some historians, French merchants from the Normandy cities of Dieppe and Rouen traded with the Gambia and Senegal coasts, with the Ivory Coast and the Gold Coast, between 1364 and 1413; as a result, an ivory-carving industry developed in Dieppe after 1364.
These travels however were soon forgotten with the advent of the Hundred Years War in France. In 1402, the French adventurer Jean de Béthencourt left La Rochelle and sailed along the coast of Morocco to conquer the Canary islands. France signed a first treaty or Capitulation with the Mamluk Sultanate in 1500, during the rules of Louis XII and Sultan Bajazet II, in which the Sultan of Egypt had made concessions to the French and the Catalans. Important contacts between Francis I of France and the Ottoman Emperor Suleiman the Magnificent were initiated in 1526, leading to a Franco-Ottoman alliance, which soon created close contacts with the Barbary States of Northern Africa, which were becoming vassals of the Ottoman Empire; the first Ottoman embassy to France was the Ottoman embassy to France led by Hayreddin Barbarossa head of the Barbary States in Algiers. Suleiman ordered Barbarossa to put his fleet at the disposition of Francis I to attack Genoa and the Milanese. In July 1533 Francis received Ottoman representatives at Le Puy, he would dispatch in return Antonio Rincon to Barbarossa in North Africa and to the Asia Minor.
Various military actions were coordinated during the Italian War of 1551–1559. In 1551, the Ottomans, accompanied by the French ambassador Gabriel de Luez d'Aramon, succeeded in the Siege of Tripoli. In 1533, Francis I sent as ambassador to Morocco, colonel Pierre de Piton, thus initiating official France-Morocco relations. In a letter to Francis I dated August 13, 1533, the Wattassid ruler of Fes, Ahmed ben Mohammed, welcomed French overtures and granted freedom of shipping and protection of French traders. France started to send ships to Morocco in 1555, under the rule of Henry II, son of Francis I. France established a Consul in Fez, Morocco, as early as 1577, in the person of Guillaume Bérard, was the first European country to do so, he was succeeded by Arnoult de Lisle and Étienne Hubert d'Orléans in the position of physician and representative of France at the side of the Sultan. These contacts with France occurred during the landmark rules of Abd al-Malik and his successor, Moulay Ahmad al-Mansur.
In order to continue the exploration efforts of his predecessor Henry IV, Louis XIII considered a colonial venture in Morocco, sent a fleet under Isaac de Razilly in 1619. Razilly was able to reconnoiter the coast as far as Mogador. In 1624, he was put in charge of an embassy to the pirate harbour of Salé in Morocco, in order to solve the affair of the library of Mulay Zidan. In 1630, Razilly was able to negotiate the purchase of French slaves from the Moroccans, he visited Marocco again in 1631, participated to the negotiation of the Franco-Moroccan Treaty. The Treaty give France preferential treatment, known as Capitulations: preferential tariffs, the establishment of a Consulate and freedom of religion for French subjects. In 1659, France established the trading post of Senegal; the European powers continued contending for the island of Gorée, until in 1677, France led by Jean II d'Estrées during the Franco-Dutch War ended up in possession of the island, which it would keep for the next 300 years.
In 1758 the French settlement was captured by a British expedition as part of the Seven Years' War, but was returned to France in 1783. The French conquest of Algeria took place from 1830 to 1847, resulting in the establishment of Algeria as a French colony. Algerian resistance forces were divided between forces under Ahmed Bey at Constantine in the east, nationalist forces in Kabylie and the west. Treaties with the nationalists under `Abd al-Qādir enabled the French to first focus on the elimination of the remaining Ottoman threat, achieved with the 1837 Capture of Constantine. Al-Qādir continued to give stiff resistance in the west. Driven into Morocco in 1842 by large-scale and heavy-handed French military action, he continued to wage a guerilla war until Morocco, under French diplomatic pressure following its defeat in the First Franco-Moroccan War, drove him out of Morocco, he surrendered to French forces in 1847. France again showed a strong interest in Morocco in the 1830s, as a possible extension of her sphere of influence in the Maghreb, after Algeria and Tunisia.
The First Franco-Moroccan War took place in 1844, as a consequence of Morocco's alliance with Algeria's Abd-El-Kader against France. Following several incident at the border between Algeria and Morocco, the refusal of Morocco to abandon its support to Algeria, France faced Morocco victoriously in the Bombardment of Tangiers, the Battle of Isly, the Bombardment of Mogador; the war was formally ended September 10 with the signing of the Treaty of Tangiers, in
Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs
The Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs is the ministry in the government of France that handles France's foreign relations. Since 1855, its headquarters has been located on the Quai d'Orsay, 37. "Quai d'Orsay" is used as a metonym for the ministry. Its cabinet minister, the Minister of Europe and Foreign Affairs is responsible for the foreign relations of France; the current minister, Jean-Yves Le Drian, was appointed in May 2017. In 1547, secretaries to the King became specialized, writing correspondence to foreign governments, negotiating peace treaties; the four French secretaries of state where foreign relations were divided by region, in 1589, became centralized with one becoming first secretary responsible for international relations. The Ancien Régime position of Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs became Foreign Minister around 1723, was renamed "Minister of Foreign Affairs" in 1791 after the French Revolution. All ministerial positions were abolished in 1794 by the National Convention and re-established with the Directory.
For a brief period in the 1980s, the office was retitled Minister for External Relations. As of 17 May 2017, the ministry is designated the Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs and led by Jean-Yves Le Drian. There are multiple services under its authority, along with that of some other ministers. Under the authority of the Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Development, that of Cooperation and European Affairs, that of Foreign and European Affairs, there are numerous services directly related to the ministers. Here is a list of those services; the ministers' cabinet The office of cabinets, which gathers a personnel in charge of the administrative and logistics aspects of the three ministers' cabinets The budget control service General inspection of foreign affairs The prospective office The Protocole, upon which the President's protocole cell relies on The Crisis management Department 140 Ministries of Foreign Affairs on the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs website. Official site of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Official treaty database of France Dictionnaire historique des institutions, mœurs et coutumes de la France, Adolphe Chéruel, L. Hachette et cie, 1855 "Ministries 1700–1870", Rulers.org