French word of the day: Droit de vote
Published: 14 August 2025
And just like that we are back from holidays to a slow and lazy August in Paris. Yes we were juilletistes this year, not aoutiens. It is always a big debate chez nous and probably every other French household: do we go on that 3-week holiday in July or August?
(If you are wondering, yes most people take 3-4 weeks in the summer. Many companies impose a shutdown, and most people average around 7-10 weeks cumulated holidays so there are still plenty of vacation days left over.)
For the Juilletists: Prices are better if you leave right at the start of July, and you get a jump start on that summer holiday. On the other hand, you come back at the start of August and everyone else is going on holiday, with you left to maneuver the ship all by yourself.
For the Aoutiens: You are waiting longer to go on holiday, while everyone else goes off, but usually July is quiet anyway so more time to plan that vacation. And when you come back refreshed, it is immediately time to jump into that September rentrée. A good thing or not?
Anyway, we tried to “couper la poire en deux” (in English: cut the pear in half. Meaning: compromise) and so are now back with a couple of weeks to go before everyone is back at school.
In Paris the museums are full but the cafés are empty (outside the tourist zones), so plenty of time to linger over that cup of cappuccino and read the news. And the big news from Paris is actually something rather obscure for visitors, but very important for locals.
The French government has just passed through a law (loi PLM) to officially change the mayoral voting system in Paris, Lyon and Marseille.
The three largest cities in France previously had a different voting system from every other town and village across the country. Since Paris, Lyon and Marseille are divided into arrondissements, they used to vote like the U.S. voting system.
Each voter used to vote for their arrondissement mayor, who then voted for the overall mayor. Like in the U.S. system, the voter’s vote was weighted depending on which state, or rather arrondissement, they live in. (A California vote is not the same as from swing-state Georgia.)
But while the U.S. electoral college was created in 1787 when horses were used to transport voting ballots and so perhaps this made sense, the original French loi PLM voting system to jerry-rig the vote was introduced into law in 1982.
And to be clear, the 1982 law was democratically scandalous. It was instituted by then-Minister of Interior Gaston Defferre (a left-winger), to assure his own re-election in 1983 as the sitting Mayor of Marseille. He squeaked away with a win despite having 10000 less votes than his opponent, in a city of 875k people.
Yes in France, politicians are allowed to combine jobs like this, even though the conflicts of interest seem questionable. Even today, the current Prime Minister François Bayrou is also the local mayor of Pau.
So anyway, finally after 43 years of questions and head-scratching, a new loi PLM has been adopted last week where 1 voter=1 vote across Paris, Lyon and Marseille.
Now it isn’t actually clear what the political fallout of this new law will be, but that is probably for the best. Next mayoral elections in France: rendez-vous in March 2026. Democracy to run its course, without gerrymandering!
In other news:
- President Macron announced that the Bayeux Tapestry is going to be lent to the U.K., leading to a symphony of protests from French and UK conservationists. The ancient tapestry features William the Conqueror (aka Guillaume) making his way from Normandy to conquer England in 1066. The conservationists consider the tapestry to be too fragile to travel, but apparently all is fair in war and diplomacy.
- France is considering closing its last public cheque (check) processing center, possibly leading to the end of that decades old method of payment. I’m not quite sure they are quite ready for this though, people here love paying by cheque. (It is one of the first things I had to figure out after arriving, how to write a cheque in French!) Note, it is important not to roll your eyes and sigh too sarcastically at the grocery store if the person in front of you pulls out a chequebook and proceeds to fill it in, making that long line to pay even longer.
- The world’s largest aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald Ford caused quite a spectacle last week in Marseille. It was there conducting exercises as part of its deployment to the Mediterranean and as a symbol “of the Franco-American alliance”, in the words of the U.S. Ambassador to France.
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