Small municipality without a full-time secretary: how to organise phone answering

A written question to the French National Assembly, published on 22 April 2025, describes the situation of small rural municipalities facing the departure of their town hall secretary: emergency recruitment, delays in administrative procedures and extra workload for elected officials. In its answer published on 3 February 2026, the government recalls the measures taken, including Law No. 2023-1380 of 30 December 2023 aimed at raising the profile of the profession.

This law renames the role “secrétaire général de mairie” (town hall general secretary) and requires recruitment at category B at least (the intermediate grade of the French civil service) from 1 January 2028. According to the same answer, it also extends to municipalities of 1,000 to 2,000 inhabitants the possibility of recruiting contract staff to these posts on a full-time basis.

For the phone, the consequence is simple: when the post is vacant, the post-holder is on leave or the post is part-time, the town hall’s line rings unanswered for part of the week.

The French ministry’s FAQ on town hall general secretaries states that a mayor may appoint two employees as town hall general secretaries if they work part-time and alternately, but not both at the same time. The same FAQ mentions the case of an employee who holds two part-time posts: town hall general secretary of their municipality in one, accounts manager for an inter-municipal syndicate (syndicat de communes) in the other.

Pooling also happens through the intercommunal body. The French General Code of Local Authorities (Code général des collectivités territoriales) allows an EPCI with its own tax-raising powers (a French intercommunal body) and its member municipalities to create common services, mainly for support functions (human resources, IT, finance), and allows an EPCI to make its services available to member municipalities by agreement. Lastly, the ministerial answer of February 2026 points out that the departmental management centre (centre de gestion) can make staff available to a municipality struggling to recruit.

These solutions share one employee’s time between several places. Phone answering therefore needs to be planned accordingly: a clear message on the days the employee is present, forwarding to a line where someone can be reached, instructions for messages.

According to its official website, the France services network brings together 2,800 accredited centres and 12 partner organisations. Advisers there help users with their administrative procedures free of charge and without an appointment, and anyone can go to any centre, even outside their municipality of residence.

This relay is useful for directing a caller: a question about a CAF file (family benefits), registering with France Travail (the public employment service) or preparing for retirement can find support there. It has its limits: the website states, for example, that you cannot renew a passport or identity card at a France services centre, even though an adviser can help with the online pre-application before the visit to the town hall.

Some of the calls a small town hall receives may concern stable information: opening days and hours, elected officials’ drop-in sessions, documents needed for a procedure, the address of the nearest France services centre, contact details of the intercommunal body for waste or water. An automated reception service can answer these questions using the information the municipality has provided and keeps up to date.

It can also take a structured message when the employee is away: name, call-back number, subject of the call, preferred time to be called back. With a connected calendar, it can offer an appointment with the mayor or a deputy mayor in slots set aside for that purpose.

Decisions are not made over the phone with an automated system: processing a planning application, final booking of a hall, assistance from the municipal social welfare centre, school enrolment. Reception can explain the procedure and pass on the request, not decide on it.

Personal situations call for the same caution. Article 9 of the GDPR classes, among others, health data and data revealing religious beliefs or political opinions as special categories, whose processing is prohibited except in specific cases. A greeting message can invite callers not to go into detail about their situation and to ask for a call back from a member of staff. For immediate danger, the instruction is to call the emergency services on the French numbers: 18 for the fire brigade, 15 for the Samu (emergency medical service), 17 to report an offence, or 112.

Alyas answers the phone 24/7 using the information the municipality provides, whether its website, a text or a PDF. It announces at the start of the call that it is an AI and that the call is recorded, collects callers’ contact details, transfers to a number chosen by the town hall if the caller asks, and places a transcript and a summary of each call in the customer area. Recordings, transcripts and summaries are hosted in the European Union. The ten-day free trial, with no bank card required, lets you measure what residents actually ask.