We have a new Maire

As only 4 people were elected in the first round of voting last Sunday, we had to have a second round yesterday to elect the remaining 11 councilors. The liste with the green affiliation didn’t have many votes last week, so they decided that they might do better by combining with one of the other teams. Because of that, it has been a busy 7 days in “local politics” in the village. We have members of both listes drumming up support, ringing the bell and explaining why we should vote for them.

At 6 o’clock, the polling finished and the counting started. We were amazed how many of the villagers turned up for this. It was quite difficult to work out who was winning. At 7:30pm the count was finished and retiring Maire read out the results. I was impressed that 89% of those eligible to vote did so. When everything was finalised, the statutory apéros appeared. When we voted in local elections in UK, it was usually less than half that. I think this is because the Maire has a more crucial role in village life here.

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We have had another unusual feathered visitor this week - an albino magpie.

Voting

Today we voted in the Elections Municipales and selected our new mayor and council. This is the first election that we have taken part in and it is quite an interesting exercise. The process is very different to that in the UK. We were presented with three listes each containing 15 names. We went into the voting booth to make up our selection. We could either put one of the lists unchanged into the voting box, or make any changes as desired. We could put more than one list into the ballot box, crossing off any candidates that we didn’t want to win. We could even add names to the list of anyone we think would represent our community well. The maximum that we could vote for in our village is 15. Other villages vary according to their size of population. The listes are generally non- party political - just groups of like minded individuals seeking to serve for the benefit of the community. We had received the manifestoes from 2 of the listes but not that of the Green group – are they saving paper?

We thought that we also had to vote for a representative for the Canton, but unfortunately as we are étrangères, we were not allowed to. This is a political election with candidates representing the usual range of parties from Green to National Front. It has been quite cut and thrust in Carcassonne. The candidates have been taking over empty shops in the town and adorning them with flags and posters. In the usual French tradition, aperitifs have also been served here to encourage passers-by to come in and give their support.