| Overseas Departments And Territories Of France |
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The French Overseas Departments and Territories (-administered territories outside of Europe . These territories have varying legal status and different levels of autonomy, although all have representation in the Parliament Of France , and the right to vote in elections to the European Parliament . Some of them have no permanent inhabitants. They include island territories in the Atlantic , Pacific and Indian oceans, a territory on the South American coast, and several Periantarctic Islands as well as an extensive claim in Antarctica . From a legal and administrative standpoint, departments are very different from territories: according to the French constitution, French laws and regulations generally apply (civil code, penal code, administrative law, social laws, tax laws et cetera), in departments as in the mainland. However, specific laws and regulations can be adapted to their specific situation. In territories, the principle is the opposite: territories are governed by autonomy statutes that allow them to make their own laws, except for some specific areas (like defense, international relations, international trade and currency, courts and administrative law), as provided in the autonomy statute, that are reserved to the central government and its local appointee. Each inhabited French territory, metropolitan or overseas, is represented in both the French National Assembly and the French Senate . OVERSEAS DEPARTMENTS OR OVERSEAS REGIONS
OVERSEAS TERRITORIES
OVERSEAS COLLECTIVITIES This category was created with the constitutional reform on 28 March 2003. Each collectivity has its own statutory laws.
]] Saint-Martin and Saint-Barthélemy ''SUI GENERIS'' COLLECTIVITY
New Caledonia has a unique status and is not even a Territorial Collectivity , unlike all other French subdivisions. As a result of the 1998 Nouméa Accord , New Caledonians will vote on an independence referendum scheduled between 2014 and 2019 . This referendum will determine whether the territory remains a part of the French Republic as an overseas collectivity, or whether it will become an independent nation. The accords also specify a gradual devolution of powers to the local New Caledonian assembly. OVERSEAS COUNTRY The status of overseas country (French: ''Pays d'outre-mer''), projected for French Pacific dependencies, was finally never created. The 2004 status of French Polynesia gives it this designation, but also recalls that it belongs to the category of overseas communities. The Constitutional Council of France confirmed that the designation of overseas country had no legal consequences. Since its status has no name and since its parliament can make local laws, New Caledonia is sometimes incorrectly termed an overseas country. MINOR TERRITORIES France also claims a remote island in the Pacific Ocean called Clipperton Island . LIST OF FRENCH OVERSEAS TERRITORIES Inhabited departments and collectivities Uninhabited lands Antarctica LARGEST CITIES IN OVERSEAS FRANCE Ranked by population in the Urban Area :
FURTHER READING
SEE ALSO
REFERENCES Robert Aldrich and John Connell, France's Overseas Frontier, Cambride University Press, 1992 EXTERNAL LINKS
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