Saturday 18 March 2017

Eleven candidates in the running


Two days ago, as I was passing the primary school that will serve as a polling station next month, two municipal employees were unloading sturdy steel poster holders from a van. They propped them up against the school wall and wired them together to stop anyone removing them.

This is where election posters will be put up, scrawled over or ripped off by opponents …..and replaced by the party faithful as the election campaign heats up. It’s the same scenario at every election.

I counted ten poster holders. France’s Constitutional Council has just announced that 11 candidates have gathered the requisite 500 signatures of MPs, mayors, local and regional councillors from all over France to be allowed to stand in the first round of the presidential ballot on April 23.

The municipal employees will be out again on Monday to add an eleventh holder!

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