from its own membership, for a term of four years.
Associated with the mayor is, in communes of 2,500 inhabitants or
fewer, an _adjoint_, or assistant, similarly chosen. In communes (p. 350)
of 2,500 to 10,000 inhabitants there are two assistants, and in those
of over 10,000 there is an additional one for every 25,000 people in
excess of the figure named. Except in Lyons, however, where there are
seventeen, the number may not exceed twelve. The mayor plays the dual
role of executive head of the commune and representative (though not
the appointee) of the central government. The powers which he
exercises vary widely according to the size and importance of the
commune. But in general it may be said that he appoints to the
majority of municipal offices, publishes laws and decrees and issues
_arretes_, or ordinances, supervises finance, organizes and controls
the local police, executes measures for public health and safety,
safeguards the property interests of the commune, and represents the
commune in cases at law and on ceremonial occasions.

The functions of the mayoral office are in practice distributed by the
mayor among the assistants, to each of whom is assigned a specific
department, such as that of streets, of sanitation, or of
fire-protection. As a rule, the mayor reserves to himself the control
of police. For the acts of the assistants, however, the mayor is
directly responsible, and all acts, whether of the mayor or of the
assistants, which relate to the interests of the general government
are performed under the strictest surveillance of the prefectorial
authorities. The mayor may be suspended from office for a month by the
prefect, or for three months by the Minister of the Interior; and he
may be removed from office altogether by order of the President.

Despite the restrictions which are placed upon it, the commune remains
the true focus of local life in France.[518] Its activities, on a
sufficiently petty scale though they not infrequently are, run the (p. 351)
gamut of finance, commerce, industry, education, religion, and
politics. So strong is the communal spirit that public sentiment will
acquiesce but rarely in the suppression of a commune, or even in the
union of two or more diminutive ones; and, in truth, the code of 1884
recognized the fixity of communal identity by permitting changes of
communal boundaries to be undertaken by the departmental authorities
only after there shall have been held an _