As I predicted in my post on March 18 (“Eleven candidates in the running “)
two more steel hoardings have been added to the ten put up that day in front of
the primary school down the road from where I live. One more for the eleventh
candidate and one displaying four official documents concerning the
election: a ministerial decree announcing the date of the election and
setting out the organisational details; a ruling from the Constitutional Council
giving first and last names of the eleven officially qualified candidates; a circular
from our département’s préfet specifying at what time polling
stations will open and close on polling day; a facsimile screen of the electronic
voting machine which has replaced the traditional polling booths for the past two
years or so. Much to the relief of the station supervisor who no longer has to buttonhole
likely looking voters to enquire, “if they wouldn’t mind coming in at 8 to give
us a hand with the count”. But also much to the disappointment of camera
crews who can longer capture the moment when a political celebrity slips his
or her envelope into the ballot box to the accompaniment of the words “a voté”
(“has voted”).
As the official campaign started on Monday of this week, eleven official,
taxpayer-funded, posters have been put up by municipal employees. Not in any old
order of course, such désordre would
be inexcusable, but in the order determined by a national draw organised by the
Ministry of the Interior, in which M. Dupont-Aignan occupies hoarding N°1 and
M. Fillon hoarding N° 11. The order on the screen of the voting machine will be
the same, as will the order in which the ballot papers will be arranged in
those polling stations that do not yet have such a marvel of modern technology.
Somehow however, désordre has
crept in: someone with an anarchistic turn of mind has written below the
ministerial decree (not across it of course as this would be an offence!), the
words “ne pas voter!” (“don’t vote !”) in neat indelible and capital letters.
Others have made their own politically motivated and idiosyncratic modifications
to the posters themselves. In front of our polling station, in a well-to-do
part of town, Le Pen has been decorated with the inevitable Hitler moustache,
Mélenchon has been given an expertly drawn pair of devils horns and the Macron
poster has been torn down. Fillon and the marginal right and left wing candidates
have been left unmolested. On the hoardings down by the railway station however,
Mélenchon supporters have been out in force, sticking small paper squares with
the Mélenchon campaign logo over the noses and eyes of le Pen and Fillon.
I shall follow the first round of voting from the Eastern seaboard of
the United States where I shall be spending ten days. But don’t think that I
shan’t be voting! Far from it. I have given my proxy vote to a neighbour, who
will vote for me on the day. There is no postal vote, no early voting and no proxy
can be given to the authorities - just an
official proxy form countersigned by a local police officer that my proxy holder
will take to my polling station on April 23 to cast my vote. Only he, not the authorities,
will know how I vote. And If he doesn’t vote the way I asked him too, I will
have no way of knowing.
The republican electoral machine is shifting into top gear. I shall miss the fun of the last few days, but
not the news – watch this space!
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