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Organization

The Grand Chancery provides three public services: it administers the national awards, directs the schools and the Museum of the Legion of Honor.

Status

The Grand Chancery of the Legion of Honor is a unique government institution responsible for managing an order with legal corporate standing.

It is an autonomous agency that operates like a ministry, endowed with its own budget allocated by the Prime Minister.

Organization

The Grand Chancery is headed by a Secretary-General, who is appointed by the President of the Republic, and under the authority of the Grand Chancellor.

Its administrative services account for nearly 400 employees (including 112 teachers), contract agents and civil servants seconded mainly from the Ministry of Justice for the management of the orders and decorations and from the Ministry of Education for the schools.

The variety of tasks requires a wide range of expertise in the legal, pedagogical, educational, cultural, heritage-related, administrative and technical fields.

See organigram

Activities

1. Administration of orders and awards

The Grand Chancery is the supervisory institution for the administration of national decorations.
Its award office is involved in the different stages of the procedure

  • Reviewing nomination and promotion dossiers sent every year by the ministries for the Legion of Honor, the Military Medal and the National Order of Merit
  • Preparing and implementing the decisions of the Council of the Order
  • Publishing the list of honorees in the Official Journal
  • Receiving chancery fees
  • Overseeing induction ceremonies
  • Mailing certificates
  • Follow up and updating of honoree lists

For these duties, the Grand Chancery is the contact of the Presidency of the Republic, the ministries, embassies, prefectures and foreign governments.

2. A public service for honorees and their descendants

  • Personalized support for the needs of future honorees and their requests for various types of information.
  • Maintaining information on members.
  • The Grand Chancery manages 200 years of archives with a database of 2.2 million dossiers, available to descendants of honorees and historical researchers.
  • Reviewing applications to the Legion of Honor schools.

3. Protector of the integrity of awards

  • Reviewing requests to create insignia or change the conditions for conferring existing decorations
  • Initiating any disciplinary proceedings that may be required against honorees
  • Receiving requests for wearing foreign decorations

4. General administration

  • Managing the Institution’s human resources and recruiting students for the schools
  • Administrative and financial management.
  • Managing donations and bequests
  • Supervising teaching and education in the schools
  • Developing the museum’s cultural policy
  • Developing the cultural policy and managing the museum
  • Maintaining and enhancing the architectural patrimony