Sète carries more debt per resident than 95% of compared communes
Hervé Marquès has been mayor of Sète since March 28, 2026, elected by the 43 members of the municipal council. At the March 2026 municipal elections, Protégeons l'avenir de Sète won 31 of the 43 seats in the second round on March 22, 2026, with 40.1% of the votes. Sète is part of the Communauté d'agglomération Sète Agglopôle Méditerranée.
March 2032
Councils are elected for six years; the council elects the mayor.
Register to vote ↗Throughout this page, the median in Hérault and the France median are the median of compared communes (those with an overall grade), each figure its own median.
What stands out about Sète’s town hall
Decided in a second round
No list won half the votes in the first round, when 7 lists stood. In the second round on March 22, 2026, Protégeons l'avenir de Sète came first with 40.1% and took 31 of the 43 seats; the other lists share the remaining 12. Who’s in charge ↓
Turnout above most communes
63.5% of registered voters in Sète voted on March 15, 2026: higher than in 79% of compared French communes. The median of compared communes in Hérault was 63.7%; across France, 57.4%. 2026 elections ↓
More debt per resident than most
Sète owed €88.6M at the end of 2025, €1,939 per resident: higher than in 95% of compared French communes (France median €748). That equals 103% of a year’s running costs. The commune’s money ↓
A big year for investment
Sète invested €702 per resident (buildings, roads, equipment), 27% of its spending: higher than in 82% of compared French communes (France median €403). Investment swings from year to year with projects. The commune’s money ↓
Results as the Interior ministry published them; accounts from the DGFiP via OFGL. Nothing here is graded.
The council the voters chose
Seats as the March 2026 results gave them, one dot a seat.
- Protégeons l'avenir de Sète3113 community seats
- Nouvelles Pages pour Sète73 community seats
- SÈTE RASSEMBLÉE52 community seats
As elected in the second round, March 22, 2026.
The list that comes first gets half the seats; the rest are shared in proportion among the lists with 5% or more, the winner included. So the winning list always has a majority. The same vote gave Sète 18 seats on the council of the Communauté d'agglomération Sète Agglopôle Méditerranée (community seats).
Source: Interior ministry, 2026 municipal election results (March 15 and 22), subject to corrections and appeals.
4 authorities share the work
The commune is the tier closest to residents; the intercommunality, the département and the région do the rest.
Births, marriages and deaths, the electoral roll, nursery and primary schools, local roads, planning permission, the municipal police, and what else the council takes on.
Mayor: Hervé Marquès · 43 councilors
The services its communes share: usually waste collection, economic development and planning documents; often water and local buses.
Social aid (RSA, care for older and disabled people, child protection), collèges, the département’s roads, and funding for fire and rescue.
Lycées, regional trains (TER) and coaches, economic development and job training.
Who to ask
The usual split of powers (service-public.fr); an intercommunality’s exact remit varies, so check its website for waste, water and buses.
Membership: COG 2026 (INSEE); intercommunality type: BANATIC, January 2025. What each tier does: service-public.fr.
From the mayor to the intercommunality
The officials as the Interior ministry’s register lists them, and the council by list.
- 1Mayorsince March 28, 2026Hervé Marquès
- 2Deputy mayors15 adjoints, elected by the councilManon BarbetRomain FerraraYamina MessaoudeneDavid FarranAnny Tognetti-LubranoSimon CaselliSophie FerrarioCédric Licciardi+7 more
- 3Sète municipal council43 seats by listProtégeons l'avenir de Sète 31 · Nouvelles Pages pour Sète 7 · SÈTE RASSEMBLÉE 5
- 4Communauté d'agglomération Sète Agglopôle MéditerranéeSète holds 18 seatsCommunity councilors are drawn from the council lists in the same vote.
Source: Interior ministry, national register of elected officials (RNE), August 11, 2026.
The 43 members of the Sète municipal council
The mayor and 15 deputy mayors first, then the councilors.
| Name | Office | Since |
|---|---|---|
| Hervé Marquès | Maire | March 28, 2026 |
| Manon Barbet | 1er adjoint au Maire | March 28, 2026 |
| Romain Ferrara | 2ème adjoint au Maire | March 28, 2026 |
| Yamina Messaoudene | 3ème adjoint au Maire | March 28, 2026 |
| David Farran | 4ème adjoint au Maire | March 28, 2026 |
| Anny Tognetti-Lubrano | 5ème adjoint au Maire | March 28, 2026 |
| Simon Caselli | 6ème adjoint au Maire | March 28, 2026 |
| Sophie Ferrario | 7ème adjoint au Maire | March 28, 2026 |
| Cédric Licciardi | 8ème adjoint au Maire | March 28, 2026 |
| Jeanne Corporon-Delpont | 9ème adjoint au Maire | March 28, 2026 |
| Alain Armenio | 10ème adjoint au Maire | March 28, 2026 |
| Corinne Paraire-Azaïs | 11ème adjoint au Maire | March 28, 2026 |
| François Escarguel | 12ème adjoint au Maire | March 28, 2026 |
| Horrida Bouraoui | 13ème adjoint au Maire | March 28, 2026 |
| Sylvain Dominguez | 14ème adjoint au Maire | March 28, 2026 |
| Blandine Authié | 15ème adjoint au Maire | April 20, 2026 |
Show the full council (43)
| Name | Office | Since |
|---|---|---|
| Hervé Marquès | Maire | March 28, 2026 |
| Manon Barbet | 1er adjoint au Maire | March 28, 2026 |
| Romain Ferrara | 2ème adjoint au Maire | March 28, 2026 |
| Yamina Messaoudene | 3ème adjoint au Maire | March 28, 2026 |
| David Farran | 4ème adjoint au Maire | March 28, 2026 |
| Anny Tognetti-Lubrano | 5ème adjoint au Maire | March 28, 2026 |
| Simon Caselli | 6ème adjoint au Maire | March 28, 2026 |
| Sophie Ferrario | 7ème adjoint au Maire | March 28, 2026 |
| Cédric Licciardi | 8ème adjoint au Maire | March 28, 2026 |
| Jeanne Corporon-Delpont | 9ème adjoint au Maire | March 28, 2026 |
| Alain Armenio | 10ème adjoint au Maire | March 28, 2026 |
| Corinne Paraire-Azaïs | 11ème adjoint au Maire | March 28, 2026 |
| François Escarguel | 12ème adjoint au Maire | March 28, 2026 |
| Horrida Bouraoui | 13ème adjoint au Maire | March 28, 2026 |
| Sylvain Dominguez | 14ème adjoint au Maire | March 28, 2026 |
| Blandine Authié | 15ème adjoint au Maire | April 20, 2026 |
| Jean-Marc Augé | Conseiller municipal | March 22, 2026 |
| Vincenzo Avallone | Conseiller municipal | March 22, 2026 |
| Pierre Bastide d'Izard | Conseiller municipal | March 22, 2026 |
| Fabien Benamer | Conseiller municipal | March 22, 2026 |
| Yaëlle Bernard | Conseiller municipal | March 22, 2026 |
| Gabriel Blasco | Conseiller municipal | March 22, 2026 |
| Chantal Boller | Conseiller municipal | March 22, 2026 |
| Zoé Bringuier-Magne | Conseiller municipal | March 22, 2026 |
| Véronique Calueba | Conseiller municipal | March 22, 2026 |
| Lisa Calzada-Asensio | Conseiller municipal | March 22, 2026 |
| Félix Caron | Conseiller municipal | March 22, 2026 |
| Hassan Daoudi | Conseiller municipal | March 22, 2026 |
| Audrey Isnard | Conseiller municipal | March 22, 2026 |
| Lucia Izoird | Conseiller municipal | March 22, 2026 |
| Corinne Jacquet | Conseiller municipal | March 22, 2026 |
| Thomas Jaubert-Lenoir | Conseiller municipal | March 22, 2026 |
| Mathilde Lary | Conseiller municipal | March 22, 2026 |
| François Lazaro | Conseiller municipal | March 22, 2026 |
| Stella Morenas | Conseiller municipal | March 22, 2026 |
| Jessica Noir | Conseiller municipal | March 22, 2026 |
| Sébastien Pacull | Conseiller municipal | March 22, 2026 |
| Sylvain Pastor | Conseiller municipal | March 22, 2026 |
| Flavio Porzyc | Conseiller municipal | March 22, 2026 |
| Ornella Ramadier | Conseiller municipal | March 22, 2026 |
| José Rodriguez | Conseiller municipal | March 22, 2026 |
| Vincent Sabatier | Conseiller municipal | March 22, 2026 |
| Laura Seguin | Conseiller municipal | March 22, 2026 |
Names and offices as the Interior ministry’s national register of elected officials (RNE) published them on August 11, 2026, written as it writes them. Public role only. Later resignations and replacements aren’t shown.
The council: same source as Who represents Sète, above.
How Sète voted in March 2026
7 lists stood in the first round; none won half the votes, so a second round followed.
21,843 votes cast for a list
22,651 of 34,323 registered voters in Sète voted.
348 blank and 460 spoilt ballots, not counted in the shares.
21,385 votes cast for a list · no seats given out: a second round followed
21,788 of 34,323 registered voters in Sète voted.
191 blank and 212 spoilt ballots, not counted in the shares.
Turnout, first round · March 15, 2026
Shares are of the votes cast for a list, leaving out blank and spoilt ballots. Lists in vote order; the colors only tell the lists apart.
2026 elections: same source as Who’s in charge, above.
Sète spends €2,588 per resident a year
The commune’s consolidated accounts: main and annexed budgets, transfers between them removed.
Per resident, 2025 · against compared communes
Spending and debt per resident, 2018 to 2025
Sète owed €88.6M at the end of 2025, €1,939 per resident, higher than in 95% of compared French communes, equal to 103% of a year’s running costs.
Show year by year
| Year | Spending | Investment | Debt | Debt in all |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | €2,588 | €702 | €1,939 | €88.6M |
| 2024 | €2,895 | €1,067 | €1,757 | €79.6M |
| 2023 | €2,457 | €631 | €1,675 | €75.7M |
| 2022 | €2,175 | €516 | €1,540 | €68.5M |
| 2021 | €2,258 | €450 | €1,656 | €73.3M |
| 2020 | €2,167 | €471 | €1,582 | €69.3M |
| 2019 | €2,318 | €608 | €1,755 | €77.7M |
| 2018 | €2,044 | €379 | €1,880 | €83.2M |
Source: OFGL, consolidated commune accounts 2018–2025 (DGFiP); 2025 provisional.
The 6th highest debt per resident of 41 communes its size
The 40 compared communes nearest in population, debt per resident at the end of 2025.
Lowest: Puteaux, €17. Highest: Bagnolet, €3,250.
Have a say in Sète
French citizens register online or at the town hall; citizens of other EU countries can vote in municipal elections too.
service-public.fr ↗See where you’re registered and which polling station is yours.
service-public.fr ↗Council meetings are public; the agenda and minutes are posted at the town hall and usually on its website.
service-public.fr ↗Opening hours, address and phone number of the mairie of Sète in the public services directory.
lannuaire.service-public.fr ↗Who can stand, how lists are formed and the deadlines, from the Interior ministry.
interieur.gouv.fr ↗What this data can and can’t tell you
- Mayors and councilors. From the Interior ministry’s national register of elected officials (RNE) as published on August 11, 2026: name, office and start dates, nothing else. The register counts a mayor as a councilor too; the page counts each person once. It isn’t a live roll: resignations and replacements after that date aren’t shown, and no party is inferred for any official.
- How the council is elected. Since March 2026 every commune elects its council from lists (a 2025 law extended list voting to communes under 1,000). A list with more than half the votes in the first round wins; otherwise lists with 10% or more can go on to a second round, where the list ahead wins. It gets half the seats, and the rest are shared in proportion among lists with 5% or more. The council then elects the mayor and the deputy mayors.
- The label beside a list. The political nuance the prefecture gave the list for the ministry’s results (Divers droite, Union de la gauche…), shown as published. It isn’t the list’s own description; many lists, most in small communes, have none.
- The commune’s money. OFGL’s consolidated accounts from the DGFiP, 2018 to 2025; 2025 is provisional. Spending and investment leave out loan repayments; running costs are part of spending. Debt is what was owed at the end of the year.
- Per resident. Divided by the DGFiP’s population for that year (population totale, which counts some people, such as boarding students, in two communes), so it can differ from the census figure elsewhere on the site.
- The medians. Beside the town’s figure, the median of compared communes in its département and in France (those with an overall grade). A commune’s spending follows its size and its role: one that runs a pool or a theater for the villages around it spends more per resident.
Questions about Sète’s town hall
Who is the mayor of Sète?
Hervé Marquès, mayor since March 28, 2026, according to the Interior ministry’s register of elected officials (August 11, 2026).
How many councilors does Sète have?
The Sète municipal council has 43 members, the mayor and 15 deputy mayors included.
Who won the 2026 municipal elections in Sète?
Protégeons l'avenir de Sète, in the second round on March 22, 2026, with 40.1% of the votes; it holds 31 of the 43 seats.
What was the turnout in Sète?
63.5% of registered voters voted in the first round on March 15, 2026; the median of compared French communes was 57.4%.
When are the next municipal elections in Sète?
Councils are elected for six years, so the next general municipal elections are due in March 2032. A council can be re-elected sooner if it loses too many members.
How much debt does Sète have?
€88.6M at the end of 2025, €1,939 per resident; the median of compared French communes was €748.
Which intercommunality is Sète part of?
Sète is part of the Communauté d'agglomération Sète Agglopôle Méditerranée, which runs the services its communes share.
Sources: Interior ministry RNE, August 11, 2026 · Interior ministry, municipal results 2026 · OFGL consolidated commune accounts 2018–2025 · INSEE COG 2026 and BANATIC (January 2025) for the intercommunality. Under the Licence Ouverte / Open Licence 2.0 (Etalab).
Contains public sector information under the Licence Ouverte / Open Licence 2.0 (Etalab): INSEE, DGFiP, the Interior Ministry’s statistics service (SSMSI), the Ministry of Education (DEPP), the Health Ministry’s statistics service (DREES) and the Housing Ministry (Carte des loyers). Commune boundaries: IGN Admin Express.