Key:local_authority:FR

Describe the official status of an EPCI. This tag must be used in conjuction with boundary=local_authority.

Values

For EPCI with proper fiscality (covering now all French departments), grouping communes in the same department.

Value	Name	Comments
CC	Community of communes
CU	Urban community
CA	Agglomeration community
EPT	Public territorial establishment	Since 1 January 2016, used within the new métropole du Grand Paris
SAN	New Town Association	Disused since 1 January 2016, all SAN have evolved to or were merged into a CA
metropole	Metropole	Recognized by law in late 2013, some of them with specific status

For various types EPCI without proper fiscality (whose members may be either isolated communes or one the previous EPCI's representing all their member communes) : they work under the legal condition of syndicats mixtes and can be:

Value	Name	Comments
SIVOM	Syndicat intercommunal à vocations multiples	Most of them are being rapidely deprecated in favor of EPCI with proper fiscality in the first category above, to which the competences are progressively being transfered.
SIVU	Syndicat intercommunal à vocation unique
SM	Mixed association
SC	Territorial coherence scheme (SCOT)
PM	Metropolitan pole

Details

• Métropole de Lyon also uses this local_authority:FR=metropole tag, but it uses boundary=administrative with admin_level=6 (like other French départements). The former département of Rhône is no longer a territorial collectivity but is still a specific circonscription départementale (at prefectoral level), grouping the new métropole and the new (reduced) département of Rhône. Within the métropole de Lyon, the commune of Lyon itself (boundary=administrative with admin_level=8) is subdivided into arrondissements de commune (admin_level=9)
• The new métropole du Grand Paris (boundary=local_authority+local_authority:FR=metropole) is subdivided into 12 territories, 11 of them being managed by EPT. This is the only French EPCI with proper fiscality that is subdivided into several EPCI with proper fiscality. Paris itself is the 1st territory of the métropole, but it is not an EPT: it is a single territorial collectivity that has the two status of commune (admin_level=8), and département (admin_level=8), it also has all the competences dedicated to other EPT within the new métropole). Within the métropole du Grand PAris, the commune of Paris itself (boundary=administrative+admin_level=8) is subdivided into arrondissements de commune (boundary=administrative+admin_level=9).
• Within the métropole d'Aix-Marseille-Provence, the commune of Marseilles itself (boundary=administrative+admin_level=8) is subdivided into arrondissements de commune (boundary=administrative+admin_level=9), but those arrondissements are in fact handled within the municipality by grouping them by into secteurs (there's no local mayor elected for each arrondissement, unlike those existing in Paris and Lyon). Those secteurs in Marseilles may be given the tag boundary=local_authority, but they are not EPCI with proper fiscality.
• SC are mainly used as testbeds for a possible later merging of existing EPCI's with proper fiscality); when these ScoT's are operated by an EPCI, they are working under the legal condition of syndicats mixtes; the existence of the SCoT is now mandated by law : all EPCI's with proper fiscality must either define their own SCoT or must become members of a SCoT created in cooperation with other EPCI, and the SCoT cover at least their urban area in a contiguous territory without enclaves (but possibly with small rural or insular exclaves belonging to some of their member communes) ; some of them are named after the INSEE urban definition of a pôle métropolitain ; but they are different from them when they exist legally as territorial cooperation structures).
• PM for the newer Pôle métropolitain networks created (or in project) according to the RCT law of 2010, to link several EPCI's in a network (they are not connected by a territorial continuity but share several interests for transports), each member EPCI forming the "heart" of their own urban area, and excluding all EPCI in the region Île-de-France); these structures; still informal (with most of them only in the stage of early projects) are not restricted to group members in the same department (and not even in the same administrative region). Despite of the name of some of them they are different from the INSEE definition of pôle métropolitain, and also distinct from the legal status of SCoT.