The Census (French Style)

As in the UK, we have a census here every 10 years; the last one being in 2001 when the population of the village was 184. Now some clever spark in the higher echelons of Government has come up with a quintessentially french cost saving idea.

The idea is that, if they conduct a census of 10% of the country, every year, over a 10 year period, the cost will be less than doing a full census every 10 years. The logic somewhat eludes me as 10 x 10% =100 ! But then I'm not french !

It so happens that the village fell within the first 10% tranch and the informal (you will see later why I use that word) results show that our population has increased to 210 since 2001, due to a number of new builds and the renovation of derelicts. In french local government circles 200 is a magic number. It confers more powers on the commune, a larger share of the Taxe d'Habitation and most important, a monthly salary for the Mayor! (last time I saw reference to the pay of the Mayor of a small commune it was about 2000 francs (£200) and that was perhaps 10 years ago).

There was wide spread expectation that the results of the mini census would be formal from the date they were published but no, the idea of the clever spark at the higher echelons of Government had been to spread the (reduced?) cost of the census over 10 years NOT the results themselves. So our population won't officially be 210 until the year 2011.

So our Mayor, who only receives an honorarium, supported by the council, are up in arms that the new population and therefore the monthly £200 won't be official until the year 2011 !