Briefed by a Lawyer - Fat Dogs and French Estates - page 79

With that he stood up, thrust his chair backwards with such vigour that it slammed
straight into the elbow of an elderly female breakfaster behind. The poor lady promptly
slopped a great spoonful of natural yoghurt down her cardigan and dropped her spoon with
a clang.
This was all very embarrassing. Fortunately there were no broken bones so we
stammered many désolés and quickly dragged Biff out from between her ankles where he
had darted in pursuit of food. We left the poor lady staring after us, completely speechless
and randomly dabbing herself with a napkin.
Repacking the car was no mean feat and took longer than expected. I was certain this
was because Jack had increased our cargo with yet more tools and spares which didn't fit
into his vast tool box. These metal newcomers now encroached on the space allocated for
other essentials so quite a bit of shuffling around was needed. Jack accomplished this with
his usual patience levels, so I left him cursing at various items of luggage as he attempted to
squash them into place. He then conducted a final external check of our injured vehicle to
make sure that all the sticky-tape fixings were still in place, the windscreen was still fully
intact and that the tyre pressures were up to full puff.
Saying goodbye to the auberge team was a lengthy affair. They were a lovely group of
people who seemed desperately keen for us to buy a property in their area. We later learned
that this kindness is typical of the locals here. We finally extracted ourselves from several
embraces and acknowledged cries from the waitress of “ Bon voyage to the lovely Collie-
Australien ”, and set off in the general direction of Montréal.
We were meeting James outside the Mairie in the town centre. The Mairie is another
classic example of bureaucracy-gone-moderately-mad. In France every commune (more
than 36,500 of them), no matter how small, has its own town hall, or Mairie. It's the tradi-
tional cornerstone of political and community life. They're the fifth level of administrative
divisions in France, which has a considerably higher total than any other European coun-
try, so is a real triumph for the bureaucrats. They're a bit like our Parish Councils, but with
much bigger teeth.
They're run by an elected council, one of which is the Maire (Mayor) and hold the
same powers and responsibilities (with the exception of Paris) regardless of size. As the
population of each commune varies from less than one hundred, to several hundred thou-
sand inhabitants, so do the resources and responsibilities of each Mairie . They are semi-
autonomous and proudly govern their own patch up to a certain level, claiming both central
government funding and local resident taxes for the privilege.
The system goes back to 1789, reflecting the division of France into villages or par-
ishes at the time of the French Revolution. In today's society, however, it is arguably eco-
nomically unsustainable. Several central governments have valiantly tried to rationalise it,
but this has always been met by huge opposition from the rural communities. These com-