Commune is the unit or lowest division in the administration of France, corresponding in the rural districts to the English parish or township, and in towns to the English municipality. In France there are about 36,000 communes, with a considerable measure of self-government, with the power of holding property, &c. Each commune has a council elected by universal suffrage, and the council is presided over by a maire and one or more adjoints or assistants. In the larger communes the maire is selected by the central government out of the members of the council; in others he is appointed by the prefect of the department. The central government through its officials exercises generally a very large control over the affairs of the commune. For the Russian commune, see MIR, and RUSSIA.
The rising of the commune of Paris in 1871 should not be confounded with Communism (q.v.). It was a revolutionary assertion of the autonomy of Paris, that is, of the right of self-government through its commune or municipality. The theory of the rising was that every commune should have a real autonomy, the central government being merely a federation of communes. The movement was based on discontent at Paris, where the people found themselves in possession of arms after the siege by the Germans. The rising began on the 18th March 1871, and was only suppressed ten weeks later after long and bloody fighting between the forces of the commune and a large army of the central government; 6500 Communists having fallen during 20–30th May, and 38,578 been taken prisoners. See FRANCE; and see histories of the Paris commune by Lissagaray (trans. 1886) and Thomas March (1896).