Petit Politics in Rural France

Mark Sampson - Wed 19 Mar, 2008

Rural politics may be small time but can be beneficial to get involved.

More news from Mark Sampson on local politics in La Belle France:

There was temporary consternation when my wife and I went down to the local mairie to vote recently.

Every six years, the municipal elections can offer a chance to register a protest vote against the current president and parliament. With Sarkozy’s ratings down at Bush levels, a big swing to the left was anticipated.

But in small rural communes like our own, motivation is often less overtly political. Sylvie Moriot, for example, a pharmacist and first-time councillor, liked the way our local mayor told his new prospective team that they would be working for the good of the commune, that their individual political orientation didn’t interest him.

The mayor is youngish, educated and with a concise manner of speech. Indeed, in his last newsletter he apologised for failing to meet every expectation. This was remarkable given even a basic grasp of the national psyche teaches you that the French don’t do apologies. In many respects, therefore, he seems like a mensch.

So we turned up to help renew his mandate.

There was some consternation on our arrival due to an apparent administrative glitch. Although we possessed genuine hand-scripted voting cards, the keeper of the official register could not find our names. The presiding trio of worthies concluded that our right to vote must still be registered in our former department.

Eventually a solution was reached. Our names were revealed in the supplementary list and all was well once more. As EU nationals living in France, we have the right to vote in local and European but not national elections. So we could legitimately cast our vote behind the curtain in the corner of the room.

Having the right to vote is one thing; knowing how to exercise it is another. Here, the voter is presented with an arcane system of lists. We were sent one list of eleven names: the mayor plus ten councillors. In a neighbouring commune, there were two lists: an agricultural faction pitted against a retired civil servant faction. There was even a competing couple with one husband on one list and his wife on the other. We expect they do talk politics around their dinner table.

You can approve an entire list by simply placing it unedited in the envelope provided. Or you can strike through the names of anyone you don’t fancy and add names of your own (even without their prior approval). You can even mix and match from two or more lists. The votes are counted and if the mayor and all representatives each achieve one vote more than 50% of all legitimate votes cast, they are elected – without a second round the following weekend.

It’s all so recherché that you wonder whether there’s any point. As Sylvie says, however, registering your vote gives you a legitimate voice in local affairs. (Though it doesn’t necessarily entitle you, as one old lady expected, to be able to phone the mayor late at night with a plumbing problem.)

Six years ago, we lived in a small rural commune with a widespread reputation for infighting. The match-chewing mayor was a descendant of the wartime incumbent executed by the Nazis. Indeed, his extended family made up roughly half of the communal population. Useful bodies in the voting booth no doubt. Those in the inner circle, could expect to be bestowed certain favours. Those outside could not.

At that time, we exercised our fairly modest protest vote concerning one of his proposed henchmen: a neighbour from hell given to selling scrap copper from electrical wire pinched from his workplace. His brand of recycling alchemy to torment his neighbours involved burning the plastic casing around the wire via regular bonfires in his back yard.

So we struck through his name on the list. Our reward? We were the only ones not invited to the celebration drinks party for the mayor’s election. And a few weeks later my wife was pointedly snubbed at the planting of a ceremonial communal apple tree. Some time after moving on, we heard that our wire burning tormentor had boasted of poisoning the once resplendent mallow in our garden.