As an expat in France, I don’t get to vote in the municipal elections today but my sweetie does and so I was trying to figure out how it works here. It became very, VERY clear that it’s nothing like in the U.S. Firstly, our little city hall has an “aperitif” room where you can have a drink and eat some cake before or after voting. Later in the day they serve wine.

Me: So who’s running for mayor?

Him: Same guy.

Me: Anyone else?

Him: Well, not really. You know, the list.

Me: What list? What do you mean not really?

Him: He could get scratched off the list.

Me: What!? People can just scratch him off the list and he’s out?

Him: Yeah, well if more than 50% of the voters cross him out.

Me: You mean cross his name out…with a pen?

Him: Yes.

Me: But. Oh. Weird. And what about the list?

Him: Since we live in a tiny village, there’s only one list. We’re lucky anyone wants to run for anything. But in larger places, there would be many lists. For example, each list representing a political party. You’re in fact voting for a list of people: The mayor and his municipal counsel.

Me: Soooo. Our village has only one list. That just means they are sure to win. No other lists means no other candidates. Are the people on the list from one party?

Him: No. But only because the village is so small.

Me: Ok, this is strange. So, who’s on the list?

Him: The guy who wants to be re-elected mayor and all his friends.

Me: His friends? Why are his friends on the list?

Him: They want to be part of the municipal counsel.

Me: What if you don’t want some people to be on the counsel?

Him: You cross out their name. And if you want someone else to be on the counsel, after you cross out a name, you can add someone’s name on the list. Same with the person running for mayor. He would be at the top of the list.

Me: What?! You mean you can cross out the name of the guy running for mayor and put ANYONE else’s name???

Him: Sure, and also with counsel candidates.

Me: Ok, so, in fact, someone who isn’t running for mayor, can actually be elected mayor.

Him: Yes. But more than 50% of the voters have to write in his name.

Me: What if that person gets elected mayor and never wanted to be mayor?

Him: He’s mayor. I guess he’d have to resign and the rest of the list would come up with a mayor.

Me: That is so kooky.

More Franco-American Conversations

Paris-based musicians, Julien Garnier and Julien Gaulier began as a punk rock band called British Hawaii but moved on to find their own sound as Hey Hey My My. They created their own musical style while taking inspiration from Neil Young and some of their favorite indie bands. They sing in English. Tonight they’re playing at Soundfix in New York but will continue their tour in France at the end of the month (see full schedule below).

Their first album is set to be released on April 23, 2008.

More about them from their label Sober & Gentle:

“Hey Hey My My is a superbly instinctive blend of enthusiasm and melancholy. Above all, it’s an explosion of energy and the deceptive lightness of simple folk, as if to give more space to the words, which go right to the heart… In all cases, their love of catchy ballads always has the same devastating effect. We leave Julien Garnier and Julien Gaulier with a smile on our lips and a tune in our heads. With the hope of savouring this tantalizing, irresistible folk pop once more and heading back to Merryland, the intimate and enchanting world of Hey Hey My My…”

Their Upcoming Schedule
8 March 2008 20:00 Soundfix New York
21 March 2008 20:00 Tandem w/ Calc, Appletop TOULON (83)
22 March 2008 20:00 Akwaba AVIGNON (84)
25 March 2008 20:00 Le Bikini w/Capsula, Sweet Apple Pie, Meltintone TOULOUSE (31)
28 March 2008 20:30 L’Aire libre w/ Calc RENNES (35)
29 March 2008 20:00 File 7 w/ Syd Matters MAGNY LE HONGRE (77)
3 April 2008 12:00 Festival Chorus des Hauts de Seine La Défense (92)
20 April 2008 20:00 Festival Paradis Articifiels LILLE (59)
25 April 2008 20:00 Les Silos CHAUMONT (52)
11 May 2008 20:00 Festival Rue des Sens w/Stuck in the Sound, Uncommonmenfrommars NANTESS (44)
13 June 2008 20:00 Festival Mouen Fort la Zic MOUEN (14)
25 June 2008 20:00 Festival le Grand Souk RIBERAC (24)
23 August 2008 20:00 Les Nuits d’O. MONTPELLIER (34)

Hey Hey My My MySpace (Listen to their music and watch videos there)

What is behind door number………..zzzZAPPP! (photo taken at the Palais des papes, Avignon, France)

From AFP:

A letter of love sent by a French 13-year-old to her late mother, addressed to “Paradise Street, Heaven,” was returned to sender with a postage fine slapped on, a report said Thursday.

On the second anniversary of her mother’s death the young girl from central France, named as Anais, wanted to send her a “message of love, like a bottle in the ocean,” according to the Journal de Saone-et-Loire newspaper.

But two days after she slipped it into a local postbox, marked with her mother’s name but no stamp, her missive was returned as a mistaken address — along with a 1.35 euro (two-dollar) fine for unpaid postage.

Asked to explain the mishap, the French post office said there really was a town in the area called Heaven — “Ciel” in French — but that the street was unknown.

Can you imagine the First Lady of another country posing nude? *shudders!*

From Reuters:

“The mayor of a village in southwest France has threatened residents with severe punishment if they die, because there is no room left in the overcrowded cemetery to bury them.

In an ordinance posted in the council offices, Mayor Gerard Lalanne told the 260 residents of the village of Sarpourenx that “all persons not having a plot in the cemetery and wishing to be buried in Sarpourenx are forbidden from dying in the parish.”

It added: “Offenders will be severely punished.”

The mayor said he was forced to take drastic action after an administrative court in the nearby town of Pau ruled in January that the acquisition of adjoining private land to extend the cemetery would not be justified.

Lalanne, who celebrated his 70th birthday on Wednesday and is standing for election to a seventh term in this month’s local elections, said he was sorry that there had not been a positive outcome to the dilemma.

“It may be a laughing matter for some, but not for me,” he said.

(Reporting by Claude Canellas, Writing by Andrew Dobbie; editing by Sami Aboudi)

Maybe, just maybe once during your trips to France, you will venture out of “the comfort zone” of your little Paris. Yes! There’s a whole ‘nother world outside of Paris that might amaze you even more than looking at the teeny tiny, glass-enveloped, security guarded, popularity queen, The Mona Lisa, which could quite possibly be a replica (Ok, the latter is just my own conspiracy theory).

A little detour to Provence (south of France) will literally be a welcome breath of fresh air once you exit the cities. We’ve been in Provence, of course at our favorite Après La Sieste, the best place to stay in Provence, in our humble opinions. In addition to being the most beautiful and relaxing B&B ever, they have a heated salinated pool, (which is like being in a comfortable hotspring more so than like being in a chlorinated pond), and an in-house chef for a memorable gastronomic meal that goes perfectly with local wines from the famous Chateauneuf du pape.

After exploring the region’s lavender fields, the surrounding “most beautiful villages in France,” the seaside Camargue and Callanques, the wine cellars and vineyards for tasting award-winning wines and more, you may, after all the day’s activities, feel pretty beat albeit happy. Lucky you because if you stay with Jacques and Chloe at Apres la Sieste, you can get a heavenly massage, a perfect Provençale denouement.

Apres la Sieste’s newest addition is an in-house masseuse, who will erase your little aches and pains and simply make you feel wonderful. You might not ever want to leave.

Apres la Sieste opens officially for the season on March 21.

Après La Sieste
2 suites, 3 rooms; breakfast included
Contact: Jacques et Chloé (English and French spoken)
Email: info@apreslasieste.com
Website: Après La Sieste
(Visit their site for more room photos, massage and chef meals details and rates)
Telephone : +33 4 66 50 33 94
Mobile Phone: +33 6 61 84 58 40

From chiefengineer:

“Thousands of canisters of highly radioactive waste from the world’s most nuclear-energized nation lie, silent and deadly, beneath this jutting tip of Normandy. Above ground, cows graze and Atlantic waves crash into heather-covered hills.

The spent fuel, vitrified into blocks of black glass that will remain dangerous for thousands of years, is in “interim storage.” Like nearly all the world’s nuclear waste, it is still waiting for the long-term disposal solution that has eluded scientists and governments in the six decades since the atomic era began.

…Greenpeace questions state-run Areva’s safety figures, and accuses the government of playing down accidents and soil and water contamination. A group called Meres en Colere, or Angry Mothers, was formed in the region (Normandy) after a 1997 study showed higher than usual local rates of child leukemia, a malady linked to radiation exposure.

Now the “pros” are on a new mission to dispel a generation of scares and suspicion, saying nuclear power is less dangerous to humans and the Earth than burning oil or coal. The “antis” say nuclear energy can never offer 100 percent protection from its radioactive ingredients.

The splitting of uranium atoms in a nuclear reactor creates the exceptional heat that drives turbines to provide electricity. The processes also create radioactive isotopes such as cesium-137 and strontium-90 that take about 30 years to lose half their radioactivity. Higher-level leftovers include plutonium-239, with a half-life of 24,000 years.

Direct exposure to such highly radioactive material, even for a short period, can be fatal. Indirect exposure, through seepage into groundwater, can lead to life-threatening illness for those living nearby and environmental damage.

For now, the best scientific solution for getting rid of the most lethal waste is to shove it deep underground.

Yet no country has built a deep geological repository. Governments meet protests each time one is proposed. The Yucca Mountain waste site in Nevada was commissioned in 1982 and is still awaiting a license.

Another option is recycling. Countries such as France, Russia and Japan reprocess much nuclear waste into new fuel. That dramatically reduces the volume: Forty years’ worth of France’s highly radioactive waste is stored under just three floor surfaces, each about the size of a basketball court, at Beaumont-Hague.

Recycling, though, produces plutonium that could be used in nuclear weapons – so the United States bans it, fearing proliferation.

And not all waste can be reprocessed. The deadliest bits – such as fuel rod casings and other reactor parts as well as concentrated fuel residue containing plutonium and highly enriched uranium – must be sealed and stored away.

That’s what lurks 10 feet underground at this Normandy plant: More than 7,000 cylindrical steel canisters, each about the height of a parking meter, stacked and sealed upright in holes beneath the slick floor. Some contain compacted radioactive metal, the others hold spent fuel that has been vitrified into glass.

Among other ideas once floated for disposing of nuclear waste have been shooting it into space (deemed too risky because of the volatile rocket fuel) or injecting it in the ocean floor (stalled because testing its feasibility is too costly), or shipping all the world’s waste to a collective nuclear dump….”

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From the belfasttelegraph:

“Saint Céneri could hardly be more French and yet its rich history has been shaped, for good and ill, by foreign missionaries and invaders. The small settlement, just within lower Normandy, was created in the seventh century by an Italian saint and hermit – Saint Céneri himself – who conjured up springs and parted the waters of rivers by pointing his stick. During the Hundred Years’ War, in 1434, the village castle was besieged for months and then demolished by 15,000 obstinate Englishmen.

After 561 uneventful years, the village fell, willingly this time, into the clutches of another foreigner – a Yorkshireman. For the past 13 years, Ken Tatham has been the mayor of Saint Céneri-le-Gérei, the only British mayor in France.

On Sunday week, 9 March, he is up for election for the third time. There are no opinion polls in Saint Céneri but Mr Tatham, 62, is likely to win by a miniature landslide.

How many voters would that mean exactly? Mr Tatham considers for a moment. “We have a population of 140, of whom 160 can vote,” he said. “This is just like Corsica, although you’d better not quote me saying that.”

Mr Tatham has lived in Saint Céneri for 38 years. He is married to a…”

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