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France: Regulations on the use of the national flag on land

Use of the flag during elections
Wearing of the tricolor sash
Seal of the municipalities

See also:

Use of flags during elections

Question: Is it legally prescribed to hoist the Tricolor flag on the premises of a polling station?

Answer: No, there is neither a law nor a regulation prescribing it.

[Answer to M. Bernard Derosier, Official Gazette of the National Assembly, Written questions from 26 July 1999, p. 4599.]

Ivan Sache, 13 April 2001

Wearing of the tricolor sash

Question: Is there a regulation on the wearing of the Tricolor sash by the Mayor and the Deputies Mayors?

Answer: Yes, there is.
According to article R. 122-2 of the Commune Codes, "the Mayors shall wear the Tricolor sash with golden-fringed gloves for public ceremonies and every time the exercise of their functions may require that distinctive emblem of their authority".

This is the only regulation about that matter, which deals only with the circumstances in which the sash shall be worn. However, according to a well-established custom, the Town Councillors (the Mayor and the Deputies Mayors) wear the Mayoral sash from right shoulder to left side. The gloves are placed on the left, to the waist. Wearing the blue stripe upwards and the red one downwards is more natural, because it matches the unfurling of the national emblem from hoist, as prescribed by article 2 of the Constitution of 4 October 1958: 'The national emblem is the tricolor, blue, white, red, flag.' Wearing the sash girding one's loi