We are heading up to Lautrec to do our civic duty and vote in the second round of les municipals–the local elections–to elect the mayor who will serve the village with his team for the next six years.
The first round last Sunday ended in a sensational dead heat (egalité) between the two contesting “lists“–512 votes apiece–so a second round plays out today.
According to our friend, Myriam, this was national headline news on French TV, radio and the newspapers. Only one other village in France, Dannemarie in Haute-Rhin, voted a tie.
Turnout in Lautrec was an impressive 85%!
Every vote counts in a small village–and unfortunately as we were still in the States, we weren’t able to vote in the first round.
We had tried to arrange to vote by proxy–the French system of absentee voting–but when we turned up at the gendarmerie as instructed, it was closed, with no notice posted about when it might be open or how we could proceed.
Dommage!
Second time lucky!
Though not French citizens, we are entitled to vote in local elections, though not in national ones–despite paying taxes here. Makes no sense to me, even less to Meredith–proud citizen of a country that fought its way to independence to escape paying taxes without representation.
There are 37,000 mayors in France and they wield real power.
They have a tendency to run and run, as there is no term limit. When we arrived here in 1990, the mayor, the local doctor, had been in place for over forty years!
The voting today ends at 6pm and we’ll go watch the count in the village hall.
A toute a l’heure, alors!
Robin Ellis 
I do hope you will post the winner and not leave us in suspense.
As long as the winner is not one who just goes to all the social occasions but never ever does anything for the community! I think we have one in our part of Cornwall!
I really wish you and Meredith would write a book about your life in France: as a Brit and a Yank moving from London to a small French town, learning the language and culture, shopping in the local markets, bees, honey, voting in the town election, adopting cats, finding new homes for noisy chickens, taking brisk walks in the morning, taking photos, organizing cooking workshops, how you stay in touch with theatre and news events in your home countries, what happens when your oven needs a repair, and of course, cooking and eating healthfully. 🙂
We have a plan along those lines, Elaine..!
Wonderful! When it comes out, it will be one more in my collection for you to sign next time you come to the States.
I do hope the best man wins for you folks. Was sad the turnout at our local town meeting a few weeks ago (except for the Tea Partyers–!) As I always want to say to the complacent, “If you don’t VOTE, then don’t COMPLAIN!” (Actually, I sometimes use a more colorful verb, but….!) 😉
In these times voting is particularly important. Unfortunately, the extreme parties are everywhere on the rise. Today we had a run-off election for the lord mayor in Munich. The weather was too nice surely one reason for the very low turnout.
Doing your civic duty Robin. Voting in USA is similar you can only vote at permanent residence not summer etc like shore properties
My husband was a career Army officer and we spent nearly all of his career outside the continental US. Voting by absentee ballot was the only way I had ever voted until he retired. You can’t imagine how excited I was to finally vote “in person” in 1996…and I still get a little thrill, walking into the voting booth. I don’t even mind having to wait in line a bit.
I feel your pain Robin – for the first 8 years we were living in Australia we were paying tax but not able to vote. We also had limited ( emergency only) access to healthcare and other services and paid for our children to go to the local state school.
Now we are citizen we are compelled to vote and fined if we don’t.
Dear Robin & Meredith,I would rater like to vote in France then here in Antwerp(I think we have it in May).Everything is on hold here, still in Belgium (because of the heritage matter and my house is not sold yet).I hope you have a good Mayor -Mairie (so important).Vive la France!Hughs to both, Chantal.