The Mayor’s Little Joke
Posted on Monday, July 12, 2010 at 8:37 amCategory: The Vendée, Village Politics
The production of the Municipal Bulletin is in full swing. Various councillors are beavering away late into the night to get the copy ready for the printers, My Dear Wife among them.
She is, inter alia, preparing a little note in English to advise the handful of Anglophones with property in the commune that they have an English-speaking representative to whom they may come with any concerns they might have., She is also formulating a list of all the enterprises in the village that offer tourist accommodation.
As of June 30th this year, anyone offering furnished tourist accommodation is required to have registered the fact at their commune’s Mairie, presumably the prelude to some kind of new taxation initiative.
My Dear Wife ‘phoned the Mayor’s office to check on the latest list and got the man himself.
Typically perhaps, the only people to have registered are the Brits: there are at least two other French owned gîtes in the village (one of which is advertised through Gîtes de France, so hardly hiding from view) which have failed to do so. So they won’t be listed in the Bulletin.
“It seems,” said the Mayor, “that it is only the English that welcome tourists to the village.”
And then he made a joke.
“God made France the most beautiful country in the world. And then, to even things up a bit, He made the French.”
I feel no need to comment further.
July 12th, 2010 13:25
You should put that on a T-shirt. For sale to tourists, of course.
July 12th, 2010 15:17
Wasn’t “And God created Bardot” a popular saying in France? How is the old mare these days?
July 12th, 2010 20:51
He IS French, isn’t he, your Mayor? What a terrific bloke – he should gather his dictums into a book!
July 12th, 2010 23:30
I seem to remember my father quoting some book that said something very similar (the sort of thing that Gavin might know, he’s well read) that says that France is a beautiful country wasted on the French. Mind, I think it goes on to slate the rest of the European populace too…………..
July 15th, 2010 17:23
It could be that some local enterprises haven’t registered because they consider themselves to be in a different kind of business.
You see, I’m reminded of an overnight stay in a small pension in Paris. At around midnight the manager knocked on my door and asked if I had a woman in the room.
When I said I hadn’t, he asked me if I’d like one…
July 16th, 2010 22:24
Kyknoord – I like a good money making wheeze as much as the next man, but I thionk this might be pushing it too far.
GB – Barmey as ever. She keeps getting prosecuted for inciting racial hatred and lives with 600 cats.
DD – Oh yes, he’s French. I mean, he’s a doctor and he smokes. Couldn’t be anything but really.
Jo – Normally these books go on to dig at the neighbours. Mind you, it wasn’t bad.
CI – Ah, well, they have full service in the Capital. Here they just ask whether you’d like vermin or not.