Who decides the names of public roads?

Rue David Bowie is inaugurated on Monday in Paris, in a new district of the 13th arrondissement, near the Austerlitz station. Franceinfo explains how the names of streets, boulevards, avenues and public spaces are decided.

New streets, feminization of spaces, removal of a negative historical symbol, homage to a personality: the nomenclature of public roads sometimes evolves over time. Gisèle Halimi, Simone Veil, Hubert Germain and Johnny Hallyday have recently given their names to streets, esplanades and dead ends. It is the municipal council which is competent to decide on this.

Wishes and voting

The road naming commission, made up of elected officials, examines the wishes and requests made by the different political groups or at the end of local consultations. With the expertise of historians, researchers and associative groups, it decides, or not, the legitimacy of the request.

The members of the commission also work in conjunction with the families and loved ones of the honored personalities, the district mayors and the various deputies concerned. It is, among other things, appropriate that the chosen location has “a concrete relationship with the proposed personality as well as with his career and his biography”indicates the City of Paris on its website.

In the case of David Bowie, it was the mayor of the 13th arrondissement who proposed the artist’s name. He had no local ties but a strong link with Paris. “His first performance outside England was in Paris. He had a very physical connection with the capital, it was there that he proposed to his wife, he said very regularly that he was very attached to France and Paris”specifies Jérôme Coumet to France Bleu Paris.

Once adopted by the members of the commission and validated by the mayor, the public tribute is submitted to the vote of the councilors, within the framework of a municipal council. Finally, the official nomenclature of the routes is modified.

“Mr. Victor Hugo, on his avenue”

It is customary to remember the names of people who have been missing for at least five years. It is a deliberation of the Paris Council of 1932 which mentions it. However, popularity and notoriety can speed up the time frame. In 2006, in Paris, the Notre-Dame square was renamed after John Paul II, who died a year earlier. Place Simone Veil in the 8th arrondissement was inaugurated in 2018, again a year after the death of the stateswoman.

The most famous exception to this custom is that of Avenue Victor Hugo in the 16th arrondissement of Paris. Avenue so named in 1881, that is to say during the lifetime of the author who lived there the last years of his life. The letter was therefore addressed to “Mr. Victor Hugo, on his avenue, in Paris.”

Rename, feminize

The name change of certain routes is sometimes decided when it relates to a dark period in history. Thus in Paris, in December 2023, the municipal council voted to change the name of Avenue Robert Bugeaud, guilty of abuses during the colonization of Algeria, to rename it after Hubert Germain, the last Companion of the Liberation who died in 2021. Four more “rebaptisms” have been in this direction since 2001, indicates the Paris town hall, which specifies that its desire is not to deny French history. The plaques from Avenue Bugeaud will thus be transferred to the Carnavalet museum, to bear witness to this moment in the history of the capital.

It sometimes happens that only some “portions of tracks” be renamed. Thus a portion of Quai Branly, in the 7th and 15th arrondissements of Paris, took the name Quai Jacques Chirac in order to pay homage to the former President of the Republic. The feminization of tracks has also been designated as an objective in recent years. In Paris, since 2014, the proportion of roads bearing the name of a woman has doubled, reaching 12% today.

Administrative procedures

Each time the street name changes, local residents are supported by the municipality. The link is made with the postal services to indicate the double address for several months. The emergency services have been notified. For everything that concerns identity papers, registration documents and various operators, changing the street name is equivalent to moving and the procedures are free.