Intercommunalities today structure almost the entire French territory. Understanding their functioning requires going beyond a simple inventory of legal categories to observe what concretely distinguishes the different forms of cooperation between municipalities, their actual competencies, and the financing mechanisms that condition their actions.
Mandatory competencies according to the type of intercommunality: comparative table
Not all intercommunities with their own tax system manage the same areas. The transfer of competencies directly depends on the legal category of the public establishment of intermunicipal cooperation (EPCI). Here is a summary of the mandatory blocks by structure.
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| Type of EPCI | Main mandatory competencies | Own taxation |
|---|---|---|
| Community of communes | Spatial planning, economic development | Yes |
| Urban community | Economic development, planning, social housing balance, urban policy, urban transport | Yes |
| Urban community | Same blocks as the agglomeration + roads, water, sanitation, waste management | Yes |
| Metropolis | The broadest set, including environment, energy, higher education | Yes |
| Intermunicipal syndicate (SIVU/SIVOM) | No mandatory competencies (free choice of municipalities) | No |
The gap between a community of communes and a metropolis is not only due to the number of competencies. It reflects a very different level of community integration, with direct consequences on the fiscal and decision-making autonomy of the member municipalities.
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Intermunicipal taxation and resource distribution among municipalities
The financing of intercommunities with their own tax system relies on direct tax revenues. Most communities collect the business property tax (CFE), the value-added tax on businesses (CVAE), and a share of the housing tax on secondary residences.
Each transfer of competency entails a transfer of burdens, and thus a redistribution of financial flows between the intercommunality and its member municipalities. This mechanism, called compensation allocation, aims to neutralize the budgetary impact of the transfer for the municipality.
In contrast, the competition fund and the community solidarity grant operate differently. The former finances specific projects, while the latter redistributes a portion of intermunicipal tax revenues to the less advantaged municipalities. These two tools create significant disparities between intercommunities depending on local political choices.
Why some municipalities suffer financially
The compensation allocation is calculated at the time of the transfer of competency. It remains fixed, except for negotiated revision. A municipality whose tax bases have increased since the transfer may find itself with compensation lower than what it previously received in direct revenues.
The revision of compensation allocations remains a recurring point of tension in community councils. Rural municipalities, whose tax bases change little, are generally less exposed to this discrepancy than growing suburban municipalities.
Intermunicipal governance: the real weight of small municipalities
The community council constitutes the deliberative body of the intercommunality. Its members are designated during municipal elections, through a designated vote in municipalities with more than 1,000 inhabitants. In the smallest ones, it is the best-elected municipal councilors who sit.
The distribution of seats in the community council structurally favors the central municipality. The general code of local authorities imposes proportional representation based on population, with a minimum of one seat per municipality. In practice, the main city of an urban community can hold a relative majority of votes.
- Municipalities with fewer than 1,000 inhabitants generally have only one delegate, regardless of their exact population
- The central municipality can obtain up to half of the seats in certain demographic configurations
- Vice-presidencies are often distributed to ensure geographical representation, but without strict legal obligation
This asymmetry of representation fuels tensions during presidential renewals. Elections with a single candidate, due to a lack of organized opposition, sometimes illustrate a non-competitive functioning of intermunicipal governance.
SIVOM and mixed syndicates: an underestimated flexibility compared to EPCI
Intermunicipal syndicates (SIVU, SIVOM) and mixed syndicates have not disappeared with the rise of EPCI with their own tax system. They occupy a different niche: targeted missions, without their own taxation or mandatory competencies.
A SIVOM can manage public lighting, social-medical action, or household waste collection for a group of municipalities, including municipalities belonging to different intercommunities. This flexibility allows them to respond to specific technical needs without burdening the structure of the main EPCI.
- No transfer of competency in the strict legal sense: municipalities retain control of the competency and finance it through budgetary contributions
- Possibility of “a la carte” membership in SIVOM, where each municipality chooses the services it participates in
- Ability to associate municipalities located across multiple intercommunities, which a EPCI with its own tax system does not allow
A la carte SIVOMs are gaining relevance for shared services such as public lighting or certain social-medical services. They represent a pragmatic alternative to EPCI for territories that wish to pool resources without merging.
Intermunicipal urban planning: a lever for sober land development
The urban planning competency, when transferred to the intercommunality, allows for the development of an intermunicipal local urban plan (PLUi). This document replaces municipal PLUs and imposes a coherent vision of development across the entire perimeter.
Intermunicipal urban planning currently concerns about half of the territories. It helps limit urban sprawl by coordinating buildable areas, ecological corridors, and commercial establishments on a larger scale than the municipality.
The PLUi generates predictable political frictions. A municipality wishing to open an area for urbanization may face opposition from the orientations of the intermunicipal document. Conversely, rural municipalities sometimes find protection against land pressure exerted by neighboring agglomerations.
The growing competencies of intercommunities in urban planning, taxation, and local governance are gradually reshaping the balance between municipalities and intermunicipal structures. The diversity of legal forms, from flexible SIVOMs to integrated metropolises, reflects organizational choices adapted to very varied territorial realities.