French mayors deserve respect for an often thankless job

I met my mayor by chance in the supermarket car park. 

“Doing the same thing as me?” I asked, by way of conversation. “Stocking up for the family?”

“No,” he answered, “buying provisions so that the mairie can provide an apéritif for the villagers after the concert tomorrow.” 

It was not strictly part of his job description; but he felt it needed to be done. 

“I can’t achieve many of my personal political goals,” he continued. “No one would vote for me if I tried to implement my party’s programme. 

"But what I can do is create ways to bring people together. They may at least come to respect each other and understand the other’s point of view.” 

In other words, democracy at its most basic.

This man is putting himself up for re-election in March, along with thousands of other mayors. 

Many of them will be elected or re-elected unopposed because no one else wants to do the job; or because no rival has been able to assemble a full list of alternative candidates. 

In smaller communities we don’t always have a choice, but we are lucky that someone is willing to do it and able to work with a team of councillors who don’t all share his political views but are equally committed to keeping our village running smoothly. 

I am quite sure there are lousy mayors around who do it badly, or do nothing, or use their office for selfish reasons; but I also believe that the majority do the job out of a sense of public service and they do the best they can. 

A mayor represents the state at ground level and in this he makes himself conspicuous; but no mayor I know does it for the status. 

He may sometimes be congratulated for his achievements but he is just as likely to be the target of residents with grudges against any level of authority.

It is very easy to criticise the performance of any man or woman who dares be the first among equals; and constituents can even get aggressive if they don’t get their way. 

I have heard people slagging off this mayor and the previous one; and almost every other mayor and every politician in general. When I ask them how they would do things differently and better, they go quiet.

Politics looks easy from the receiving end but don’t be fooled into thinking it is not a skill which involves huge doses of listening, tolerance and compromise. 

A mayor does a lot more than chair council meetings and decide what time the street lights go on and off. 

He has to interact with a range of personnel who have an impact on the running of a commune: municipal employees, teachers, the local priest (who is nominally in charge of what goes on in the church), neighbouring mayors, architects, visiting government inspectors, and so on.

“We don’t have that much power,” my mayor tells me. “Some 80% of the stuff we deal with is by obligation. We have to implement legislation decided higher up, in the regional capital or Paris. 

"The rest depends on budget and some of that is also eaten up by unavoidable commitments. If the church needs a new roof, we have to find the money.”

The efficacy of a mayor also depends on the team that supports him. In our village there are two or three councillors who pull their weight – and too many that are never seen or heard. 

It is impossible to delegate to volunteers who do not show up when the jobs are being handed out. Hence, my mayor pushing a trolley across the supermarket car park, municipal shopping list in hand. 

I doubt if he will mention this in his manifesto on election day. It’s all part of the discreet service that not everyone notices or appreciates. France is lucky to have people like him.