Tidbits

A few days ago, I mentioned that the right-wing Front National presidential candidate Marine Le Pen was asking the French Constitutional Council to do something about the problems she's having getting enough endorsements — 500 — to qualify for the ballot in May.

What she proposed was making the endorsements anonymous rather than publishing the names of the elected officials (there are some 47,000 of them, mostly mayors of towns and villages) who agree to "sponsor" her candidacy. As things stand, the names of the officials who sign an endorsement are published in the government's Journal Officiel a month before the election takes place.

The Constitutional Council decided to let the rule stand. Constituents of the "sponsoring" officials will be continue to be allowed to know who their representatives have endorsed for the presidency. Marine Le Pen still says she does not have enough endorsements to get her name on the ballot, and she has only a couple of weeks left to get them.

The weather has turned positively spring-like, with low temperature near 50ºF in the morning and high temperatures expected to approach 60 over the weekend. The price for that right now is low gray clouds and constant mist and drizzle. I'll take it— it's better than ice and snow.

Yesterday we drove down to Loches to do some shopping. That's something we wouldn't have tried to do two weeks ago, when the roads were ice-covered. By the way, to those who liked to shop there, I can report that the Halles et Champs produce/meat market near the Centre Leclerc has shut its doors and gone out of business.

My updated driver's license is in the works — I hope. I filled out the paperwork, scanned and printed copies of the required backup documents, and had "mug shot" pictures taken in one of those little Photomaton booths at the supermarket.

When I turned in the file at the village hall, the woman behind the counter asked me why I wanted an updated French driver's license. I explained about my periodic trips to the U.S. and how driver's licenses over there have more recent pictures on them than the 31-year-old photo on my French license, which was issued in 1981. That old license as has my old Paris address on it, from way back then.

You'd do better to keep the old French license and apply for an international license to go with it, the woman at the mairie told me. Problem is, the international license has to be renewed every three years. That's a hassle. It means more frequent mug shots — I assume the "informational" international license has a photo on it.

On this map I found on a French government web site, the
caption at the top says: "In red are the countries for which
an international driver's license is recommended."
Notice that the U.S. and Canada are not in red.

According to what I've read, the international license is just a translation of your official license and must be accompanied by the latter. If it's just a translation, then it will have the same address on it as my French license. My whole purpose in asking for a new French license was to get one with a more current photo and my current address on it — the same address that appears on my French carte de résident, my French and American bank accounts, and my credit cards.

The woman at the village hall was not particularly helpful. She said she would send my application off to the prefecture in Blois and see what the decision was. "Your old license is not in bad condition, and it obviously hasn't been lost or stolen," she said as I handed it over to her. "Normally, it's only replaced when it is damaged, lost, or stolen." Never mind that it said right on the form that you are allowed to request a new license if your name or address has changed.

It's been two weeks today and I'm still waiting.