Wikipedia
Cercle is French for circle. It can refer to:
- circle (country subdivision)
- Cercle (French colonial) an administrative unit of the French Overseas Empire
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Cercle (Mali), the Malian administrative unit
- The specific Cercles of Mali
- Cercle Brugge K.S.V., a Belgian football club from Bruges
- Le Cercle, a foreign policy think-tank specialising in international security
- In Belgium, Cercles are Student Societies based around each faculty
Cercle was the smallest unit of French political administration in French Colonial Africa that was headed by a European officer. A cercle consisted of several cantons, each of which in turn consisted of several villages, and was instituted in France's African colonies from 1895 to 1946.
At the bottom of the European administration the "Cercle Commander" ("commandant de cercle") was subject to the authority of a District Commander, and the government of the colony above him, but was independent of the Military structure (outside of Military areas, e.g. modern Niger and Mauritania prior to the Second World War). Below the "Cercle Commander" was a series of African "Chefs de canton" and "Chefs du Village": "chiefs" appointed by the French and subject to removal by the Europeans. As well, the "Cercle Commander" made use of a large number of servants, employees, and African officers such as the "Gardes-de-cercle" police, any military units seconded to them by government authorities, and sub administrators such as the Precepteur du marché trade inspectors, etc.
Usage examples of "cercle".
Black and Colonel Carson Newburgh left the Cercle Sportif in the Rolls-Royce the French had assigned for his use.
The rest of us are taken to the Cercle Sportif, which is sort of a golf club, with a place where the frogs jump horses over fences.
The man whipped his horses, and they rattled down the broad street, past the brilliantly-lighted cafes, the Cercle Militaire, the palace of the Resident, where Zouaves were standing, turned to the left and were soon out on a road where a tram line stretched between villas, waste ground and flat fields.
In his impatience to find other seconds who would be firm, Gorka hastened to the Cercle de la Chasse.
Poor Poinsinet put him in a little one-act play called Le Cercle, which, though of very ordinary merit, was a great success.
He dined at the Cercle Franqais and dawdled over his coffee, hoping Cadbury would turn up.
Cadbury walked into the bar of the Cercle Frangais a few minutes before twelve the following morning, greeted a few acquaintances, and seated himself on his favorite comer stool at the bar.
Selon mon systeme, auquel il faut reconnaitre cette candeur qui fait le charme des theogonies primitives, la terre formait un large cercle autour de ma maison.
French Cercle Sportif, with its verandas overlooking the Perfume River, its tennis courts and gleaming white concrete driveway, and he was reminded of an incident that took place on his first trip to Hue, a month earlier in November.
Cercle Sportif, and the Ho Chi Minh Museum, and within a few minutes, we were out of the small city and into the low rolling hills, heading south.
He was a tall, lean, aris-tocralic Naval Academy graduate whose talent lay more in establishing himself as Ie grand phoque at the poolside cocktail bar at the cercle sportif than playing full-contact mud-sucking with the Khmer Rouge.
Jean-Philippe Portet and Lieutenant Geoffrey Craig were having dinner at the Cercle Sportif when Geoff was summoned to the telephone.
Jean-Philippe had met Geoff at the airport and brought him to the Cercle Sportif for dinner, that Geoff was somehow uncomfortable with them.
Poor Poinsinet put him in a little one-act play called Le Cercle, which, though of very ordinary merit, was a great success.