I was there to watch 600 mayors debate with Macron

It is not often a president comes to the sleepy town of Souillac in the Lot, near where I live, but when he came for his second meeting with the
mayors of France, I took the chance to attend for Connexion. It was an impressive sight. Six hundred mayors, most of them with their tricolour sashes across their chests, listening attentively as Emmanuel Macron spoke.

There are a lot of mayors in France – nearly 35,000 – so this was just a small selection, there by invitation only from the Elysée. They came from the 13 departments in Occitanie and fulfilled Mr Macron’s wish to meet the so-called rural mayors who look after smaller populations, often under 500.

They feel forgotten and some have already handed in their notice – 23 in the Lot alone this mandate, 200 in Occitanie. The mayors I spoke to before Mr Macron arrived were happy to have this chance and many had come hundreds of kilometres to be there as Souillac is in the very north of the region, nearest to Paris.

It was no mean feat getting into Souillac that day. I live 10km away and the first meeting with gendarmes was at the bottom of my empty country road, where there were two, one armed with a rifle, who asked me to open my boot.

Two more checkpoints before reaching the centre of town, where the shops had pulled down their shutters and the market had been cancelled.

Anyone who wanted to go to work had to have a letter from their employer and an ID card – and, if you lived there, you had to show proof of address and an ID card to get home.

There was a small gaggle of gilets jaunes in front of the post office, outnumbered by the CRS surrounding them.

At 15.30, half an hour late, the meeting started. Twenty-eight mayors had been chosen beforehand to air their questions and grievances, and that alone took two and a half hours.

Poverty in their communes, the growing gap between poor and rich, closing classes in schools, lack of healthcare and public transport, the need for help to attract industry and business and new inhabitants, more support for renewable energy projects, and disbelief that internet and mobile phone coverage would arrive for all by 2020 were all subjects aired.

Now it was Macron’s turn.

He is an accomplished speaker with a solid grasp on the policies he is dealing with.

He had no aides whispering facts and figures in his ear, no paper in his hand other than the pages he used to make assiduous notes on whilst listening. He spoke confidently, directly to the person who had raised the point, and was not floored, even when it came to talking about Pyrenean bears.

He gently reprimanded the mayor who raised the subject for giving the wrong name of the valley where they were first introduced.

He often said he was prepared to discuss this or that matter but also made clear that he thought his reforms were already beginning to address the issues raised.

He did say that after being driven on the local roads, some limits might go back to 90kph.

It was a respectful audience, with whistles and boos just once when the mayor of Montauban brought up immigration. She was firmly reminded by the president that immigration and terrorism should not be mixed up in the debate.

Macron spoke for over two hours but it was far from over.

Mayors were invited to put their hands up to speak, and they too were answered one by one. Christian Venries, president of the Lot rural mayors, was applauded when he told Macron he should take advice from the people on the ground before drawing up laws in Paris.

Speaking up for the weakest, the insecure and the destitute, he warned the president that if he imposed laws without consultation, he would be pouring petrol on an uncontrollable fire.

The marathon ended at 22.10 – a little shorter, at just over six and a half hours, than the seven-hour debate in Normandy a few days before.

The mayors listened attentively. I am sure some did not leave their seats the entire time.

They clapped at the end and sang the Marseillaise in a room decorated with huge tricolours.

However, as they were leaving, I asked one, Francis Chastrusse from Nadaillac-de-Rouge, Lot, for his impressions.

“I don’t think rural mayors were satisfied by what he had to say,” he said. “It is clear he is leaving it up to us to get on with things as best as we can and we will continue to be submerged in administrative duties.”