Where is Ouzouer ?
The Loiret département (region) of France
As Great Ayton is in North Yorkshire, so Ouzouer is in the département of Loiret. Départements are administrative regions invented by Napoleon to exercise rigid control over the whole of France from Paris. Each département was run by a préfet or prefect, appointed from Paris and the boundaries of départements were set so that the préfet could travel by stage-coach to any part of his domain between sunrise and sunset. Napoleon tried to name the départements after rivers to avoid political arguments between rival cities, but the mighty Loire flowed through so much of France that the names of seven separate départements include "Loire". There were older regional names, but these were swept aside by Napoleon; in fact Ouzouer would have been in the old region of Orléanais.
In 1972, as a token gesture to "The Europe of the Regions", the government introduced larger administrative regions to provide a small degree of regional autonomy. Loiret is in the region of Loire/Centre. However there is still considerable central control, in spite of four layers of regional and local government (région, département, canton and commune).
The commune of Ouzouer-sur-Loire
Ouzouer is a commune, and for centuries the commune has been the centre of French local government. With 36,000 communes, many of them tiny, France has more units of local government than the whole of the rest of the EU put together! Each commune has a mayor and each mayor is responsible for a substantial budget and a wide range of civil duties including registration of births, deaths and marriages. The mayor, with his council, is really at the centre of the community. The equivalent situation here would be for the Great Ayton Parish Council to have much of Hambleton District's power and wealth, all under the personal control of the leader of the Parish Council! Obviously the French system brings local government much nearer the local community, but could be accused of some inefficiency.

Jean-Michel Besse has been Mayor of Ouzouer since 1989. He is a keen supporter of the twinning or jumelage and makes commune funding available for twinning activities. In contrast the Great Ayton Twinning Association runs on voluntary contributions and fund-raising activities. This means that events in Ouzouer are often on a more lavish scale than we can afford here, but everyone understands this and accepts the reason why.

Great Ayton Twinning Association
Great Ayton, North Yorkshire, United Kingdom
Tel and Fax : +44 (1642) 711438

peter@great-ayton-twinning.co.uk
Webmaster: Peter Chandler