The official website of the Communauté Urbaine de Nantes

Since 1 January 2001, the Urban Community of Nantes, now Nantes Métropole, has been acting in the service of 590,000 inhabitants of 24 municipalities in the Nantes urban area. Twenty-four municipalities which, in creating Nantes Métropole, joined forces for greater solidarity between their residents and for development that would respect natural balances.

What is an urban community? It is a grouping of several municipalities to form a whole consisting of more than 500,000 inhabitants. It is the highest degree of cooperation between municipalities, focusing on a shared goal of regional development. Nantes Métropole is a Public Institution of Intermunicipal Cooperation (EPCI) comprising 24 municipalities, representing a territory of 52,336 hectares and 590,000 inhabitants. The urban community is governed by an assembly of 113 elected officials appointed by the municipal councils of the 24 individual towns in the area. The President of Nantes Métropole is Jean-Marc Ayrault, MP and Mayor of Nantes.

An institution serving the people

The organisation of Nantes Métropole has been defined so that the skills of the urban community can be put to use to achieve the following objectives:

• encouraging local management,
• ensuring the operational quality of the main public services,
• managing major development projects in the city.

To apply these skills, the urban community has divided its area into nine territories known as "pôles de proximité" or local centres. Its areas of responsibility are many: travel and transport, economic development, employment, international development, higher education and research, tourism, roads, cleaning, waste, water, sanitation, environment, energy, housing, planning and urban development, major amenities.