Quelques chiffres intéressants :
Seulement ~6% des communes françaises disposent d'un service informatique.
Pour ~94% d"entre elles, ce sont des prestataires qui font le boulot (ou les élus eux-mêmes).
Ces ~33000 communes représentent ~37% des habitants.
Un vrai enjeu serait d'aller chercher tous ces prestataires locaux pour qu'ils proposent des solutions qui ne reposent pas sur les grands acteurs américains.
Pas simple.
Yet I don't think it would be technically or financially difficult for each commune to run a mastodon server (with a hosting service) for themselves and local people to communicate local information - simple things like road closures, lost pets, free stuff - as well as more important legal etc info - simply moderated by local volunteers, as many local Facebook Groups are already.
As an Englishman, I don't think you realize how *small* some of our communes are... - each with their own independant local administration and elected people
some have less than 20 *inhabitants*...
In Britain, local services have been centralized much earlier, but in France, we are still fighting around our *belltowers* 🤷
True - I didn't know any communes were that small - and I guess those 20 people could just talk among themselves anyway ! - but I've lived in a small-ish rural commune with less than 1 250 inhabitants for nearly 14 years - that in fact has its own volunteer-run but Mairie-supported Facebook Group.
Much of the infrastructure and voluntary organisation is there anyway - I'd just like to see all that volunteer and public effort redirected to building European capacity, rather than American commercial interests.
the smallest commune I knew had 3 inhabitants (parents + son)... elections consisted of choosing who would be mayor and who would be sub... -- I believe they finally merged with a neighboring one since
but the problem is not so much communication between inhabitants, than the very heavy administrative duties they have to assume, including maintenance of the roads and churches that they legally *own* :(
Nicolas Vivant 
GeofCox
RainbowFrog