The story
Statistics in France before the INSEE
The INSEE was preceded by several related statistical agencies in France. In 1833, the Statistics Bureau (French: Bureau de la statistique) was created by Adolphe Thiers. In 1840 it was renamed SGF or General Statistics of France.
Under the direction of Lucien March, the SGF expanded its activities. It began an investigation of consumption habits in 1907, following with periodic investigations on retail prices in 1911.
In 1920 Alfred Sauvy introduced competitive entrance exams for SGF recruitment. However, it was René Carmille, a pioneer of the use of the calculator, who laid the foundations of the modern organization. In 1940, the Demographic Service (Service de la démographie) was created under the Ministry of Finance in order to replace the military recruitment office prohibited by the June 1940 Armistice with Nazi Germany. In order to better conceal its undertakings, the Demographic Service absorbed the SGF on 11 October 1941. The new organization was called the SNS or National Statistics Service. As part of this reorganization, six new offices were created in the Northern (occupied) zone whose regional structure is maintained today in INSEE.
René Carmille created an Applied Sciences School (predecessor of the current ENSAE) to specially train members for the SNS.
Carmille worked for Vichy France but he was actually a double agent for the French underground. From his position in the SNS he sabotaged the Nazi census of France, which saved untold numbers of Jewish people from death camps. He also used his department to help mobilize French resistance in Algeria. He was caught by the Nazis and sent to Dachau where he died in 1945.
Creation of the INSEE
The SNS was finally transformed into the INSEE by the law of 27 April 1946; the National Institute of Statistics and Economic Surveys for the metropolis and overseas France (L'Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques pour la métropole et la France d'outre-mer).
IRIS
IRIS is the name for France's unit of division of geographical regions for the purposes of taking a census. In order to prepare for the dissemination of the 1999 French population census, INSEE developed a system for dividing the country into units of equal size, known as IRIS2000, now known simply as 'IRIS'. The acronym stands for 'Ilots Regroupés pour l'Information Statistique' ('aggregated units for statistical information') and the 2000 in the name referred not only to the upcoming millennium year but to the target size of 2,000 residents per basic unit.
Since 1999, IRIS has represented the fundamental unit for dissemination of infra-municipal data in France and its overseas departments and regions. Towns with more than 10,000 inhabitants, and a large proportion of towns with between 5,000 and 10,000 inhabitants, are divided into several IRIS units. France is composed of around 16,100 IRIS in total, of which 650 are in the overseas departments. There are 3 types of IRIS unit in use; residential IRIS (pop. between 1,800 and 5,000), business IRIS (containing more than 1,000 employees) and miscellaneous IRIS (specific large zones which are sparsely inhabited and have large surface areas (leisure parks, ports, forests etc.).
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List of directors
The following is a list of directors of the INSEE since it was founded:
1946–1961: Francis-Louis Closon
1961–1967: Claude Gruson
1967–1974: Jean Ripert
1974–1987: Edmond Malinvaud
1987–1992: Jean-Claude Milleron
1992–2003: Paul Champsaur
2003–2007: Jean-Michel Charpin
2007–2012: Jean-Philippe Cotis
2012–present: Jean-Luc Tavernier
From Wikipedia’s article on Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.5