My commune has 545 ish population… Our nearest big town is just under the 3,000… and last week I was there, at the official opening of a public building… anyway… I found myself holding the door open for some visiting dignitaries… knew they must be important by the size of their limousine. I smiled, said hello and asked each of them for 2€ to let them come on in…
got some lovely smiles and greetings, but no-one actually parted with any cash… such a shame… and I would have taken a cheque…
That made me laugh… you would have a motive to be nice to radical revolutionaries who might seek to overthrow you. I think you might mean communards, not Communards! Either that or your town is populated by gay vicars and small round faced people.
Our previous maire was deposed in July after six years of doing absolutely zilch. He was replaced by a young lady with big ideas, many of which have also come to fruition. What a change !!!
Yesterday the previous maire was found guilty of harassment towards a female employee in the mairie. He was fined 3000€ with 5000€ costs.
He’s still a councillor under French electoral rules but maybe he’ll have the decency to resign.
Our pre-previous mayor always managed to turn his head when you made la bise and you got a smacker instead.
Although he lived in our part of the commune, he was never invited to any of our private social gatherings.
We now have our friend as Mayor and she is a breath of fresh air. Although like me, 73, she has been in senior management of a large organisation in Lyhon and knows how to get things done, as much as possible in a rural village in France.
Our new lady is early forties and her first job was to clean up the village. There was litter etc everywhere so she organized her new team to personally pick up the litter, provide doggy doggy bags etc. A weekend which showed immediate results and impressed us locals.
She has a clear agenda and is very pro active.
The old maire has lost any respect he may have had and is now being seen for what he is.
Our new mayor has been a new broom, after decades of the same family having the role (father/son not mother/ daughter of course). Unfortunately he is sweeping rather vigorously, and has deeply offended half the village. He is a retired very senior executive, and rather more accustomed to taking decisions than seeking opinions and getting consensus first, so is ignoring his conseil. Whoops. No doubt it will settle down soon…
In our 20 years… the Mayor has only “left” for health reasons.
Indeed, the 2nd Mayor would have been re-elected had he not died 2 days before polling day. Even though he was dead… he got a huge number of votes… and his chosen 2nd 2nd in command was elected Mayor and is still Mayor to this day.
The Mayor’s funeral was huge, he was beloved by all. We number less than 600 in our commune, but there were over 1,000 mourners … the roads were blocked and our cemetery was packed (with the living, for a change…).
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