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Sucking up to the Mairie


Angie
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Miki - oops... in a thread about sucking up to the Maire, I'm not trying to teach people how to suck eggs! [;-)][:D]. Apologies if it seemed that way. I did join this forum many moons ago under a different pseudonym that I have since forgotten, and there doesn't appear to be a list of members that I can scan through in an attempt to rediscover it - hence rejoining under a new name...

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No, please don't apologise. I was serious, posting as you did is far more helpful than many might realise.

For various reasons, It can take some people just a few years to slot in

and be pretty au fait with life here but for some, it can literally be

never. Language has to play the largest part in all this. What one can

perceive as being told to you, can indeed be the reverse, so one can

walk away thinking  one thing when actually it was something

entirely different (in this case, say a fonctionnaire !) AND not right

anyway !!

French sites, such as this one,  need people like yourself with experience, for

one thing and probably the most important, they have been there, made

mistakes (haven't we all and sometimes, they can be a little expensive

as well !!) and can then pass on genuine first hand knowledge. I know

that quoting from government sites are done with the best of intentions

and for the most part they are certainly the main source but how often

can you go in to an office and find that it doesn't quite work like the

book says!

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I quite agree with what Miki and Wedderburn say. Just as you should never take what is written on the internet as gospel, neither should you rely on the word of just one official, especially in France (unless you can get it in writing, signed and dated, and use it to your advantage, but that's very unlikely).

I also think that it should never be necessary to suck up to anybody. The maire, despite what he or she may think, is just an ordinary person. Be firm, stand your ground, but above all be polite. You will be respected far more than if you try creeping or backhanders.

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On issues with local officialdom, sometimes people do bring problems upon themselves, and this does occasionally come about through a lack of respect for the way of life in your new home, sometimes seen as arrogance by the locals. I mentioned the following in my blog last week, a 100% true story from a nearby village in the Vaucluse..

"...Back in Provence

amusement was tinged with more than a little disdain around the bars of

a small village, when a newly installed citizen of the USA phoned the

town hall to demand immediate action against the ‘menace’ that was

threatening the area. The Axis of Evil,

it turned out, took the form of a coalition force of cricket and

cicada, which in concert were conspiring to turn the lives of the

American couple into a nightmare. “Not so much as a wink of sleep in a week”,

was the complaint, with the cicadae quietening down during the evening

only for the crickets to take over for the night shift. When –

unsurprisingly – the token August Town Hall staff failed to take any

action, a recorded delivery letter, written in deadly earnest, promptly

followed. The Town Hall, insisted the American, had no option but to

have the entire region treated with insecticide…"

No suggestion that anything remotely like this took place in the original poster's experience, of course.

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