Like every five years, a census campaign is carried out in France. It began on January 16 and is expected to last several weeks. It will end on February 15 in small towns in mainland France, the Antilles and Guyana. It will continue six days later in the large municipalities of these territories. In Reunion and Mayotte, it will last until the beginning of March.
What is it for?
Thanks to the census, INSEE can determine the official population of each municipality. It also collects a large amount of information on residents: age, profession, housing, and even means of transport. A new question was added to the questionnaire and this made the unions jump. It concerns the place of birth of the parents. According to INSEE, it should make it possible “to measure and study discrimination, particularly due to geographical origin, on an unprecedented scale”
The number of inhabitants makes it possible to determine the amount of grants that municipalities can receive. There is therefore a real challenge for the budgets of cities and the investments they can make.
Who is affected?
Not all French people will receive visits from census takers. Indeed, in municipalities with more than 10,000 inhabitants, only 8% of the population is surveyed every year. They are chosen at random. On the other hand, in towns with less than 10,000 inhabitants, the entire population is censused every five years.
Am I obliged to participate?
Each citizen affected by the campaign must respond to the questionnaire. This is a civic gesture. “Law No. 51-711 of June 7, 1951 as amended on the obligation, coordination and secrecy in matters of statistics makes the response to questionnaires obligatory,” states the website le-recensement-et-moi.fr.
-If you refuse, you risk a formal notice sent by the town hall. After receiving this letter, if you still do not wish to answer the questions or if you have deliberately lied when completing the questionnaire, you may receive a fine of 38 euros, reminds the site Merci pour l'Info.
What to do if you are not at home?
“If you are absent from your home when the enumerator visits, the enumerator leaves a notice in your mailbox in order to arrange an appointment to provide you with the documents necessary for the census,” indicates the website le-recensement-et-moi.fr.
If your schedule does not allow you to schedule an appointment, you have other solutions: complete the questionnaire online or return your completed paper questionnaires. You can send it to “the enumerator, directly to your town hall or to the nearest INSEE regional office”. However, postage costs will be your responsibility.
