Civic Duty

Rain was threatening as we made an 8am start for the Mairie's outpost in the mountains to staff the polling station there. Today, 40% of French voters turned out to choose a new Député(e) for the National Assemblé, ie, their MP. The Socialists are favoutites but the National Front is getting ever stronger, however, as there's no PR, hopefully they won't win any seats when the second round takes place.
The day was long with 69 of the 114 voters on the register coming in. Mostly people were good natured and chatty though we did have one elderly lady who wanted to convince us that there was life after death and a couple of others who moaned about the lack of council services. Par for the course, I suppose though I'm not sure that an omlette and perrier lunch (our choice)and getting to sign the official papers as one of the officials quite made up for the cold feet and long day!
When the final count for the whole of the commune came in, the Socialist candidate had a good lead over the sitting UMP candidate so we'll keep our fingers crossed for next weekend.
After it was all over we went to the bar to have a drink with the Mayor and wind down. It was like the European Union in there with Dutch, German, British, French, Catalan, Irish and Danish customers and oh dear, the football has started and it was on the tv.