They assimilated the culture, learned the language, paid the taxes and served as public representatives in their adopted home nations, but from March, hundreds of Britons serving as municipal councilors in cities and towns in France will no longer be eligible to hold office, or vote.
As the UK departs the EU after a near half-century alliance, small-town French mayors, especially, are dreading the pending “colossal loss” of a key political resource.
“It is hard to find motivated people in a small town,” said Perriers-en-Beauficel Mayor Lydie Brionne of a Normandy town where two of the 11 municipal councilors are Britons.
Photo: AP
Just like other citizens of the EU, Britons have since 2001 been entitled to stand in local elections in France, except for the position of mayor, which is reserved for French nationals.
They lose the right after Brexit becomes official at midnight, though they will be allowed to serve out their mandates until fresh local elections in March.
No longer EU citizens, Britons in France also lose the right to vote in local elections.
Brionne said that Perriers-en-Beauficel — population 216 — would struggle to find replacements when its British duo are forced to retire.
One of them is Patrick Head, 64, originally from Wiltshire, England, and the 28th Briton to buy a house in the sleepy French commune.
In 2014 — 10 years after moving there — he received by far the most votes in a local election, but despite this massive show of support, he will be “fired” shortly, a “very disappointed” Head said.
“We will miss Patrick because he helps us a lot,” added Brionne, explaining he is a key link between the local authority and the 50-odd Britons living in its corner of Normandy.
“For the last 20 years, many Brits have moved here, they have repopulated the town and given it dynamism,” she added.
After Brexit, “I fear that they will be obliged to go back,” Brionne said.
Far from an isolated case, similar fears exist in other towns where Britons have put down roots.
Of France’s 35,048 municipal councils, 712 have British representatives — 757 councilors in total.
They make up almost a third of the nearly 2,500 foreign representatives among France’s nearly half a million local councilors.
In Poupas, a town of 85 inhabitants in the south of France, three of the 11 councilors are from across the English Channel. Two have obtained French nationality, which means they remain eligible to serve.
“It is a colossal loss,” Poupas Mayor Pascal Guerin said of the Brexit-induced upheaval.
British residents of Poupas “are perfectly integrated into the town life, even more than the rest of the population,” he said. “For them, Brexit is a total aberration, they are taking it very badly.”
“One councilor even cried when Boris Johnson was elected” British prime minister on a pro-Brexit ticket, Guerin said.
Allison Mackie, a 63-year-old from Scotland, is one of two British representatives on the council of Bellegarde-du-Razes, a town of 240 people in southern France.
She has lived there since 2011 and is heartbroken that she would no longer be able to serve her community as an elected official.
“We built our house here, we pay taxes here, we consume here, but we are scrapped from the voters’ list,” she said.
Jouac Mayor Virginie Windridge, the 39-year-old head of a town of 180 residents in central France — is married to a British man.
She finds it “very unfair that people who have been here for years, pay their taxes and contribute to community life will overnight have no right other than to ‘shut up and pay.’”
“It is hard to swallow,” Windridge said.
The two British councilors for the town play an important role in the community, she said.
“They bring new ideas, a different way of operating and of viewing things,” she added.
France is home to a little more than 157,000 Britons, making it the biggest expatriate British community after Spain, British data showed.
Outside Paris, large numbers are to be found in Brittany and the southwestern Dordogne region.
British expats are often credited with breathing new life into dying parts of rural France, taking over homes and businesses abandoned by younger people flocking to the cities.
A plan by Switzerland’s right-wing People’s Party to cap the population at 10 million has the backing of almost half the country, according to a poll before an expected vote next year. The party, which has long campaigned against immigration, argues that too-fast population growth is overwhelming housing, transport and public services. The level of support comes despite the government urging voters to reject it, warning that strict curbs would damage the economy and prosperity, as Swiss companies depend on foreign workers. The poll by newspaper group Tamedia/20 Minuten and released yesterday showed that 48 percent of the population plan to vote
PARLIAMENT CHAOS: Police forcibly removed Brazilian Deputy Glauber Braga after he called the legislation part of a ‘coup offensive’ and occupied the speaker’s chair Brazil’s lower house of Congress early yesterday approved a bill that could slash former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro’s prison sentence for plotting a coup, after efforts by a lawmaker to disrupt the proceedings sparked chaos in parliament. Bolsonaro has been serving a 27-year term since last month after his conviction for a scheme to stop Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva from taking office after the 2022 election. Lawmakers had been discussing a bill that would significantly reduce sentences for several crimes, including attempting a coup d’etat — opening up the prospect that Bolsonaro, 70, could have his sentence cut to
A powerful magnitude 7.6 earthquake shook Japan’s northeast region late on Monday, prompting tsunami warnings and orders for residents to evacuate. A tsunami as high as three metres (10 feet) could hit Japan’s northeastern coast after an earthquake with an estimated magnitude of 7.6 occurred offshore at 11:15 p.m. (1415 GMT), the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) said. Tsunami warnings were issued for the prefectures of Hokkaido, Aomori and Iwate, and a tsunami of 40cm had been observed at Aomori’s Mutsu Ogawara and Hokkaido’s Urakawa ports before midnight, JMA said. The epicentre of the quake was 80 km (50 miles) off the coast of
RELAXED: After talks on Ukraine and trade, the French president met with students while his wife visited pandas, after the pair parted ways with their Chinese counterparts French President Emmanuel Macron concluded his fourth state visit to China yesterday in Chengdu, striking a more relaxed note after tough discussions on Ukraine and trade with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) a day earlier. Far from the imposing Great Hall of the People in Beijing where the two leaders held talks, Xi and China’s first lady, Peng Liyuan (彭麗媛), showed Macron and his wife Brigitte around the centuries-old Dujiangyan Dam, a World Heritage Site set against the mountainous landscape of Sichuan Province. Macron was told through an interpreter about the ancient irrigation system, which dates back to the third century
RSS