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We got a decree to say as we are less than 1000 people, ID was not required. The Gendarmes did turn up to do a control and asked to come in. As I was nearest the door I said they could, provided they had a photo ID - they were armed and stayed outside in the rain!

The mix and match of the two lists was not understood by most of the voters, the only two people who asked for an explanation were two English ladies. One of my fellow officials laughed at them taking so long in the booth. I told him they were making sure they crossed his name off the list! Back tonight to do the count...
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Just finished my five hour stint. Bisous with half the village as they came in to vote, home-made brioche, coffee and my chocolate refrigerator cake. Only problem was it was either freezing with heating off or boiling with it on.

Hoping it won't need a second round, surely seven councillors from eight candidates can't be that complicated?
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[quote user="EmilyA"] surely seven councillors from eight candidates can't be that complicated?[/quote]

Are you talking about the same Freance as we live in Emily [:-))]

Chancer, ta for the giggle.

And damjams with no photo id? Priceless [:-))]

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The voting itself was very simple after all he explanations I had been getting of the system, being over 1000 habitants I was given two lists and a twee little official envelope like something out of Winnie the Pooh (dont ask me why but thats what I thought) so put one in the envelope and throw the other.

Would have been even simpler had there only been one list but what a palaver that would have been for nothing!!!!

The Maire said last night that there could technically be a second tour if only one person turned up to vote, perhaps I misheard and it was "not one person", does a second tour come about if no list gets more than 50% of the vote?

If so then I have missed a trick, its going to be a close vote and I could have persuaded a small group of people to do a protest "nul vote" to force a second tour; no doubt many of them will anyway because they either dont understand or dont like the new system.

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[quote user="Gardian"]Just been to vote.

Bit of a disappointment. Normally at any sort of 'do' in our village, they lay on slices of pizza and a glass of something. [/quote]Hah! Move to Normandie, vote early... and be offered a nice plate of tripes à la mode de Caen. [+o(]

I'm in a <250 commune and when I produced my photo ID I got laughed at and it was waved away. [:$]

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OH and I didn't need ID either although we took care to have our passports on us.

I took a long time as I'd written down the 11 names I wanted on a bit of paper which I took into the booth with me.  As I had panaché the 2 lists, I then made an error by crossing out one person too many and had to come back out and get another of the lists..............o, la, la, silly me!

OH, on the other hand was in and out.  In our previous commune, there was only the one list so there was no picking and mixing.

 

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Well, we're done and dusted and though there was only one liste, there was clearly a bit of tactical voting going on within it judging by the selections that were made - all non-complete liste papers were read out to those assembled at the count.

All on the liste have been elected on the first round (on the 50% of votes cast + 1 principle) and may I be a bit prideful [:$] in saying my very British OH received more votes than anyone else. [:D]

Okay he's not part of the donkeys-years-old feuds that are typical of any small, rural commune but any votes he received because no one had anything bad to say about him (or his parents or their parents!) is probably balanced out by some French people never voting for foreigners. But they did vote for OH and I'm a bit proud of the positive contribution he's made (hopefully we've made) to the village over the past 10 years.

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Well done Mr C!

Can anyone explain to me the correlation between elections and the queue at the boulangerie or the hordes in the local bar? They were halfway up the road queuing for bread this lunchtime. I thought there might be a bread strike in the offing and nobody had told me, but I think it's more likely that, once out of the house and having voted, it's a sort of reflex reaction to go and buy bread/have a quick drink.....
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Well done Mr Catalpa!

We are pretty sure we are the only Brits in our village (and there are other resident Brits) who are actually registered to vote.

As far as ID is concerned our voting cards say ( in printing) that ID is only needed in a town/village of over 5,000 residents. This cuts out anywhere around here.

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Le gouvernement a revu sa copie. Un décret venait de rendre

obligatoire la présentation d’une pièce d’identité pour pouvoir voter,

dans toutes les communes françaises, quelle que soit leur taille.

Jusqu’à présent, seuls les habitants des communes de plus de 3 500

habitants y étaient contraints.

La pression de bon nombre d’élus, à commencer par l’Association des maires de France (AMF), aura été efficace... Un nouveau décret, paru au Journal officiel de ce jeudi 20 mars, indique que présenter son titre d’identité ne sera pas nécessaire dans les communes de moins de 1 000 habitants.

L’AMF estimait que l’obligation était "vécue comme une contrainte

supplémentaire et absurde dans les communes rurales"... Avec la peur que

l’abstention, déjà grande, soit accentuée par le dispositif.

Don't forget that the majority of people in France don't live in the country where these cosy little arrangements are allowed to operate.

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A bit of a dog's breakfast of a result here.

All 30 candidates (2 listes) got betweenz 45% and 53% of the votes! so the top 10 were elected from the existing Marie's list, but not her. She was 10 votes short of what she needed.

So a 2nd round on Sunday for the remaining 5 places. Hope she doesn't throw a wobbler and bale out. There'll be some horse-trading going on behind the scenes. Sadly, this is a return of the clan warfare that has going on here for years and which she had seemingly eradicated - clearly not!!
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There really are 2 Frances...

In the great majority of places that sort of system no longer exists. It is the complete list that is voted for and any trading off takes place between losers to decide whether to form a new list from those candidates who were in lists that got more than 5% but which  have now decided not to stand.

A for a discussion of the results and trading-off in this region listen to the video

http://www.midilibre.fr/2014/03/24/analyses-sur-les-resultats-du-premier-tour-des-municipales-en-languedoc-roussillon,838505.php

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Chancer:  Interesting about voting cards not being needed. Clearly our commune don't know, they were ceremoniously stamped!  Our very small village - about 200 voters - would seem to fall under the new rule not needing ID but if there are no voting cards and no-one knew the person it could prove difficult.  We knew some of the helpers at the vote so in a way ID was irrelevant. We also signed a list when we had voted - presumably this is the norm.

Haven't been to look at our results yet. We need 11 on the council. There was a list from the Maire with 11 names on it and one other person standing alone. As the Maire did not bother to come and see us or even leave list in our letterbox (as he has done in the past) but the lone person did we crossed a name off the Maire's list so as to vote for the lone ranger. He was an outgoing councillor and had thought to retire and then changed his mind.

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[quote user="NormanH"]Le gouvernement a revu sa copie. [/quote]

What a surprise! [:D]

[quote user="NormanH"]Un nouveau décret, paru au Journal officiel de ce jeudi 20 mars, indique que présenter son titre d’identité ne sera pas nécessaire dans les communes de moins de 1 000 habitants.

[/quote]

That was a bit of a last minute amendment - and also would explain why, like Hereford, we had our voting cards taken, stamped and we also signed the 'register'.

Betty, I've noticed before that polling day is a bit of a festival atmosphere in our village and in the local towns - as you describe. It shows how little happens in rural France, I suppose. At 10am most Sundays (unless it's a Mass in our church Sunday) the village is usually deserted but yesterday, there were a fair few cars, the little café in the salle run by the comité des fêtes was open (normally only in use a few times a year) and plenty of people were already on the Ricard and (separately) cider. First vote then drink. Works for me. [8-|]

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The turnout in our village was 87% (98% for the national election) and 6 persons have been elected.

So, we still need 5 to go and I shall have to study the lists and photos again![:-))]

The only person I have talked to and who was willing to tell me what they did, was an elderly neighbour of 84 and she, like me, had mixed names from the 2 lists and taken her own list into the booth to make sure we crossed out the right names.

Other people, talking amongst themselves but not to me directly (what a surprise) were muttering about everything being concentrated on one family.  Gym tonight so will try and get there early and do a bit of eavesdropping.

There will be some jockeying for position I expect but my preferred person for mayor did get the most votes so I await next Sunday with much interest.

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The 2 lists, each with 5 names have arrived this morning.

So, how will I cast my vote this Sunday?  I can tell you straight off that 4 of the names will come from the party who have promised to aménager our chemin.  The 5th will be a friend's wife.

As you see, I am perfectly susceptible to bribes.  So, anyone thinking that the promise of a council house will not change anybody's political allegiance (this topic on another thread) needs to think again!

The chemin has been a thorn in my side since the vrai c*n opposite moved in, cut over a hundred trees and single-handedly reduced a pretty country lane into a quagmire once the roots of the old trees were gone and the bank is now eroding with each successive rain storm (and we have had a fair few of those).

Roll on, Sunday!

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Well? I'm not too sure that I would be in your good books then Dix-sept?? I am part way through cutting down about 60 trees [6] but they are laylandii and they are dying and they will not cause any errosion, so I may be OK [8-|]

Our one list got between 93 and 97% between them and there were just the right amount, so no real excitement there and no second vote either..

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If it only were so simple...

Anyone who watches French TV news, if anybody does on this Forum, cannot fail to have seen the numerous reports about our difficult situation.

Last Sunday the list supported by the Front National got nearly 45%, the present team minus the retiring Maire got 30%, the Socialist around 19% and the Communist 6.5%

That doesn't quite add up since I have approximated.

We were plastered all over the media because if the Front National get in here it will be their big prize as we are a town of 72,000

All sorts of manoeuvring is going on with calls for the Socialist to stand down to put up a Front Republican to prevent the FN candidate getting in, but he has defied his party, been expelled from it and created a new list de 'fusion' with the other parties of the left.

At the same time the Préfet has insisted that for the second round the FN list is clearly labelled as a Front National List, which it wasn't first time round, when it was just said to be an independent list 'supported by' he FN

The hatred and back-biting and plain nastiness that are going on particularly on Face book and in the comments sections in MidiLibre are quite upsetting.

This is an interesting article which confirms much of what I say regularly on here about this part of France:

http://leplus.nouvelobs.com/contribution/1163353-robert-menard-en-tete-a-beziers-il-prospere-sur-la-misere-sociale-de-la-ville.html

Les familles qui y vivent sont parmi les plus pauvres dans une ville et une région pauvre : 35% de chômeurs (16% dans l'ensemble de la ville), 25% de familles monoparentales. La moitié vivent d'abord d'allocations sociales diverses, et 80% avec un niveau de vie inférieur à 600 euros (près de 30% pour l'ensemble de la ville).

Pour présenter cela à mes étudiants, je mets en valeur que ces données sociales sont équivalentes à celle de East Harlem, le quartier du crack à New-York dans les années 1990... On peut parler d'une véritable implosion sociale.

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