Margot Wallstrom, the communications commissioner (and 2nd in command in Brussels) recently said that she is fed up with the reign of old men governing the EU. I couldn’t be more in agreement with her.

So when I read that 18 year-old Diane Serrano is running for mayor of Florac, a village of 2,000 inhabitants in the south of France, it was more than welcome news. France and Europe in general, need a huge reform and it’s going to take younger people to make those huge changes happen. A crusty, 80-year old mayor may not want to do anything different than he’s done for the previous several decades, and he may not even care that the villages are dying and anyway, the crusty crowd should be retired. In the area where I live, there are at least three mayors over 70. That’s gotta change.

France has about 5,000 villages and cities and many of them are in a state of disrepair and no one is doing anything about it. It’s sad. But, Ms. Serrano wants to revitalize her village and though she is criticized for not having the experience behind her, she at least HAS the energy and new ideas and willingness to propose a an upward improvement. Hopefully, people in other cities and villages will be inspired by her - and we’ll start seeing much needed change in France.

Note: I’m not saying older mayors are incompetent, though some of them obviously are - I’m just saying that France would benefit from having more younger people in leadership roles.

[photo: Anne-Christine Poujoulat AFP]