Seine-Saint-Denis

Seine-Saint-Denis is a department of France located in the Grand Paris metropolis in the Île-de-France region. In French, it is often referred to colloquially as quatre-vingt treize or neuf trois ("ninety-three" or "nine three"), after its official administrative number, 93. Its prefecture is Bobigny.

In 2019, it had a population of 1,644,903 across 40 communes. In French, the learned but rarely used demonym for the inhabitants of Seine-Saint-Denis is Séquano-Dionysiens; more common is Dionysiens.

Geography
The department is surrounded by the departments of Hauts-de-Seine, Val-de-Marne, Paris, Val-d'Oise, and Seine-et-Marne. It is thus one of only five French departments surrounded entirely by other departments of the same region.

Seine-Saint-Denis is located to the northeast of Paris. It has a surface area of only 236 km2 (91 sq mi), making it one of the smallest departments in France. Seine-Saint-Denis and two other small departments, Hauts-de-Seine and Val-de-Marne, form a ring around Paris, known as the Petite Couronne ("little crown"). Since 1 January 2016, together with Paris, they have formed the area of Greater Paris (Grand Paris).



Principal towns
The most populous commune is Saint-Denis; the prefecture Bobigny is the eleventh-most populous. As of 2019, there are 5 communes with more than 70,000 inhabitants:

Administration
Seine-Saint-Denis is made up of three departmental arrondissements and 40 communes:



History
Seine-Saint-Denis was created in January 1968, through the implementation of a law passed in July 1964. It was formed from the part of the (hitherto larger) Seine department to the north and north-east of the Paris ring road (and the line of the old city walls), together with a small slice taken from Seine-et-Oise.

Seine-Saint-Denis has a history as a left-wing stronghold, belonging to the ceinture rouge (red belt) of Paris. The French Communist Party has maintained a continued strong presence in the department, and still controls the city councils in cities such as Saint-Denis, Montreuil and La Courneuve. Until 2008, Seine-Saint-Denis and Val-de-Marne were the only departments where the Communist Party had a majority in the general councils but the 2008 cantonal elections saw the socialists become the strongest group at the Seine-Saint-Denis general council (while the Communist Party gained a majority in Allier and lost it in 2015).

A commune of Seine-Saint-Denis, Clichy-sous-Bois, was the scene of the death of two youths which sparked the nationwide riots of autumn 2005. In October and November, 9,000 cars were burned and 3,000 rioters were arrested.

In 2018, the department had the highest crime rate in metropolitan France. In 2017, the area was the location of 18% of all drug offences in metropolitan France.

Demographics
Seine-Saint-Denis is the French department with the highest proportion of immigrants: 21.7% at the 1999 census (see table below). An immigrant according to INSEE is anyone born non-French within or outside France and as such, this figure does not include people born French but with a migrant background or from overseas France. The ratio of ethnic minorities is difficult to estimate accurately as French law prohibits the collection of ethnic data for census taking purposes.

In 2018, the poverty rate was twice the national average at 28%, the unemployment rate was 3% above the national average, at 12.7%. In 2018, it was estimated that 8–20% of the population in the department were illegal immigrants.

Population development since 1881:

Education
An education study confirmed falling levels of literacy in the area, where the percentage of pupils who had 25 errors or more increased from 5.4% in 1987 to 19.8% in 2015.

Politics
The president of the Departmental Council is Stéphane Troussel, first elected in 2012.