Socialists gain ground in municipal elections

There are 37 cities in France with a population greater that 100,000, and now 25 of them are controlled by leftist, mainly Socialist Party, mayors. Cities including Toulouse, Strasbourg, Périgueux, Reims, Rouen, and Metz elected Socialist mayors, some of them for the first time in generations. Major cities that remain under the control of the right wing — most by President Sarkozy's UMP party — include Bordeaux, Nice, and Marseille.

The mayor's office in Metz had been held by the right for 160 years!

I don't have any election pictures. This was the view
from the kitchen window yesterday. It rained all day.

Mayor Bertrand Delanoë was re-elected in Paris with 57% of the vote, an unprecedented performance for a Socialist candidate in the French capital.

Locally, the mayor's post in Blois was recaptured by the Socialists after 7 years of a right-wing administration.

Callie came in just under the wire!

One of the biggest pieces of news after the second round of municipal elections, however, is that 38% of the people eligible to vote didn't even go to the polls. That's the highest abstention rate ever.

Centrist politician François Bayrou was unsuccessful in his run to be mayor of the city of Pau. He lost by 450 votes out of the 36,000 cast in that city.

This was Callie just before she rolled in something very stinky.

The left-leaning newspaper Libération points out that 7 of the 10 biggest French cities are now in the hands of the Socialists.

The right-leaning newspaper Le Figaro says that of cities with a population greater than 30,000, the left now controls 183 and the right 124, which represents a net gain of 38 cities by the left.

In Paris, which each of the city's 20 arrondissements has its own mayor, the right controls most of the western areas of the city and the left controls most of the east.

This is our house and yard. Can anybody tell me
the name of the big evergreen tree on the left side here?

According to Le Monde, the French newspaper of reference, the left (the Parti Socialiste and its allies) won 49.5% of the vote overall, and the right (the UMP and its allies) won 47.5%.

Meanwhile, the left now controls two-thirds of France's 100 administrative départements (which might be compared to U.S. counties). Members of the departmental councils were decided in yesterday's élections cantonales.

In our region, according the the newspaper La Nouvelle République, the Socialists gained ground in this election. They remained in control of towns including Amboise, Saint-Pierre-des-Corps, Romorantin, Poitiers, Le Mans, La Rochelle, Nantes, Tours, Angers, Vendôme, and Chinon. And they won in Blois and Vierzon.

The right maintained control in Bourges, Châteauroux, Loches, Orléans, and Chartres. In Saumur, the leftisit mayor was defeated by a UMP candidate.

The neighbors' lilac bush stands out against a stucco background.

According to Le Figaro, the right wing took control in Saint-Aignan. The new mayor, Jean-Michel Billon, ran with a coalition of right-leaning councilors and was elected by nearly 59% of the vote against outgoing mayor Yves Piau, a Socialist. Vote totals were Billon 934, Piau 659. There goes Saint-Aignan, bucking the national trend!

And the biggest news for us is this item that Roselyne brought with the morning's baguette. The new mayor of our village is going to be our neighbor two houses up the road. She's been on the village council for several years, and she told us in January that she is planning to retire from her job in June. She and her husband are planning a trip to the U.S. in the fall.