In France, a prefecture () may be: the chef-lieu de département, the commune in which the administration of a department is located; the chef-lieu de région, the commune in which the administration of a region is located; the jurisdiction of a prefecture; the official residence or headquarters of a prefect. Although the administration of departments and regions is distinct, a regional prefect is ex officio prefect of the department in which the regional prefecture is located. The officeholder has authority upon the other prefects in the region on a range of matters. Role of the prefecture There are 101 prefectures in France, one for each department. The official in charge is the prefect (). The prefecture is an administration that belongs to the Ministry of the Interior; it is therefore in charge of the delivery of identity cards, driving licenses, passports, residency and work permits for foreigners, vehicle registration, registration of associations (creation, status modification, dissolution), as well as of the management of the National Police and firefighters, although as of 2018, 79% of firefighters in France are part-time volunteers. Prefectures are usually located near the geographic centre of their departments; they were originally chosen for being within a day's travel on horseback from anywhere in the department. Therefore, the largest settlement in a department may not always be its prefecture: the department of Marne, for example, has its prefecture at Châlons-en-Champagne despite the city of Reims, near the Aisne border, being four times its size. The prefect represents the national government at the local level and as such exercises the powers that are constitutionally attributed to the national government. The prefect issues ordinances written for the application of local law: to close a building that does not conform to safety codes, or modify vehicular traffic regulations (speed limit, construction permits). The governing body of the department is the departmental council (), which is elected through a system of cantons. It is in charge of the building and maintenance of middle schools (collèges) and departmental roads, financial assistance to dependent people (disabled and elderly), as well as promotion of local economic development, amongst other matters. In the past, the prefect was head of the department, but since 1982, the President of the Departmental Council has assumed the role of chief executive of the department. Parisian exception There is an exception in Paris in the Île-de-France region and its three surrounding