The selection process

32 assessment criteria

Once the application has been approved, the candidate village undergoes an on-site assessment on a date agreed between the Mayor and the label’s Quality Officer.

This assessment is based on a grid of 32 objective criteria designed to assess the village’s heritage, architectural, urban planning and environmental quality, as well as the effectiveness of the local authority’s measures in managing and enhancing its territory (urban planning tools, management of visitor numbers, aesthetic improvements, etc.). It involves a preliminary meeting with the Mayor of the municipality (accompanied by any persons of their choice), a review of town planning documents, and a technical photographic survey of the entire village.

The expert report

The data collected during the assessment is then compiled into a report presented by the Quality Officer to the Network’s Quality and Accreditation Committee . Comprising elected representatives from member villages of the network as well as experts, this body has sole and sovereign authority to classify or declassify villages. It meets twice a year (at the end of June and the end of September) to examine applications from new villages as well as the re-evaluations of classified villages.

Following the presentation by the Quality Officer and a debate supported by accounts from members who have carried out their own visits to the candidate village, the Committee proceeds to a vote. This must be approved by a two-thirds majority of those voting for one of the following two decisions to be ratified:

• Classification of the village ‘without reservation’, which does not preclude the formulation of observations or advice aimed at improving its quality,

• Classification of the village ‘with reservations’, as set out in the assessment report and in the Quality, Heritage and Environmental Charter signed with the network, which must be partially or fully addressed at the time of its re-assessment.

• Non-classification of the village, which does not preclude – unless otherwise specified by the Commission – the possibility of resubmitting an application after a minimum period of 6 years.

Whatever the verdict, the local authority that submitted the village’s application will receive an official letter and an assessment report setting out the reasons for the decision voted on by the Quality and Certification Commission

N.B.: Each classified village is re-assessed at regular intervals of between six and nine years, depending on the level of reservations raised with the local authority during the village’s first or previous assessment.

The signing of the Quality, Heritage and Environmental Charter

Although it is deemed to take effect as soon as the decision is passed by the Quality and Certification Committee, it is the signing of the Quality, Heritage and Environmental Charter of Les Plus Beaux Villages de France by the Mayor of the village and the President of the network that formalises the village’s classification. The ceremony organised to mark this signing provides the village with its first opportunity to publicise and promote its classification as one of the Plus Beaux Villages de France to residents, local authorities and the media. It is compulsory and must take place within a maximum of one year from the date on which the Quality and Certification Commission issued its decision.

The Quality, Heritage and Environmental Charter entails a number of commitments, both for the network and for the local authority within whose boundaries a classified village is situated. Thus, through the Charter, the network undertakes to:

• Grant the local authority (as well as its affiliated bodies, such as the Tourist Office) the right, and indeed the duty, to use the figurative emblems of its registered trade mark (logo),

• Enable the local authority to benefit from the initiatives and services it undertakes to improve the quality, reputation and development of all member villages.

For its part, the local authority is obliged – on pain of the village being declassified – to play an active role, in accordance with the principles laid down by the scheme, in implementing its strategy, in particular by:

• Paying an annual financial contribution,

• Taking part in the network’s working meetings,

• Continuing its efforts to improve the overall quality of the village (heritage, hospitality, development, etc.) and to address any reservations expressed at the time of its classification.