Cancellation of ceremonies de voeux

General Discussion
1

It seems that multiple Maires are cancelling their new year’s ceremonies de voeux, in the interests of saving funds/drawing attention to budget cuts etc.

I confess I have never been to our local town’s ceremony (I’m v happy to read all about the Maire’s latest brilliant plans and outstanding successes, repeated ad infinitum in the local media and on his FB page!). I’m fairly sure amongst SF members there will be some who are keen attendees, and others like me who don’t attend or rarely do so.

I wonder - would you miss your cérémonie de voeux if it were cancelled - and what would you miss about it?

2

We do go, not regularly but every few years. Our village is spread out, with no regular market or other activity where you encounter other villagers. So this and a few other things are opportunities to keep in touch and show that we are community minded without actually having to do much.

This year we went to the dimanche d’avent so may give the voeux a miss.

3

For us the ceremonie de voeux is important. We don’t do any of the other commune events during the year, like the chasse meal, because we don’t enjoy the food and there’s less chance to mingle and meet and greet (briefly!), which we can do at the ceremonie as it’s just a stand up occasion. We are now on our third mayor and each of them has been very helpful / important to us in terms of getting stuff done. And so it’s an excuse to show our faces without it being a “thing” and chat to the mayor.
I think it depends on the size of the commune - ours has only about 6-700 inhabitants and most are in the village and immediate surroundings, we are more isolated, so it helps if we show we are not being stand-offish.

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4

It’s important for us too. It took a few years to work out what on earth it was, but once we did we’ve gone each year. What staggers us each time is how many people in the commune actually go. It seems to be extremely important to the villagers and it has to take place in the new big sports hall as that’s the only place large enough to fit in as many people that go. Even a few of the local Brits go, which is remarkable in itself, although they tend to all sit together and talk loudly in English throughout, so we try to sit on the other side of the room!

For me, with distinctly impaired hearing, it is an opportunity to see and hear the plans for the years being spelled out clearly by the maire. There are other occasions where the commune is kept up-to-date but I generally have problems following those, although I do try.

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5

This is Google’s translation of part of that link. Gives an idea of why some are being cancelled :wink:

“If you ask associations to reduce their subsidies, which I hope will not be the case for us, and at the same time you have a ceremony of wishes, there are people who do not understand very well.
To govern is to choose.
So, to protect the essentials like public services, community life, sport, culture, well you do not do the less useful things.”

Thus, it seems that those Maires who are cancelling do Not consider the V de Maire to be a “useful” gathering/occasion. :wink:

However, this annual gathering is very useful to our Commune.
We are low numbers 500+ and very widespread.
It’s a time when everyone makes the effort to get-together.

The Council and Regional folk are introduced so we know who’s who (and, yes, they do drone on a bit sometimes… )

New Residents to our Commune (all nationalities) are introduced and welcomed.
Info given clearly about the Commune Projects etc 2024 and the Future 2025.

After all the speeches, we do not drink expensive champagne and munch on expensive titbits.
A glass of apple juice or cremant and some peanuts/Tuc biscuits/crisps … that’s yer lot … and not everyone stays for that.

and, as @SuePJ says, it can be a useful opportunity to chat with someone in friendly fashion and gain their advice… :wink:

certainly not a cent is wasted on this occasion.

I strongly suspect that the Rubbish System will be a “hot topic” this time… now, if anyone wants to talk about “a waste of money”… ??? :sob:

6

I’ve never seen any notice about it, what date are they normally held on?

7

each Commune does its own thing…

8

Ours is nearly always the second Friday evening in January. Our mayor pops a flyer in everyone’s letterbox. I’ve just checked on our commune website and note there is no mention of it! They’re not very good at keeping it up to date.

9

@David_Spardo might be an idea to check with your pals.
If you haven’t already missed it, you can pop along and see what goes on… :wink:

10

@David_Spardo Ours is quite variable in date - last year it was lateish in January and the year before it was the first week. It’s definitely worth a look in my view but of course your commune may not have one…

11

As long as it is sometime in January it’s dans les clous :slightly_smiling_face:

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12

I love the fact that one is never late wishing our friends and neighbours across France… a Happy New Year… so long as it’s before the end of January… such a relief… we can take our time and spread out the hangovers :rofl: :rofl:

perhaps this should be in the cheerful news thread ??

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13

Ours is 18th, we’ll be over but doubt I’d understand much of it.

14

We know the feeling. Our previous mayor had his speech written down and OH went up to him and thanked him for his speech and asked if we could borrow his copy as we did not understand all of it (any of it!). At that moment we became friends for life. :slight_smile:

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15

OK probably not too late then. I saw as I came home today there are a couple of notices on the board at the bottom of the hill, I’ll check them out tomorrow, just the sort of thing I would love to go to.

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16

Even if you don’t it’s a really interesting cultural experience - or at least it has been for us! Our maire uses a lot of visuals so we get to see what’s happeing from those if we’ve missed the words. They are building a new Pôle Santé and the plans were on display last year at the Ceremonie des Voeux. We should see the progress this year.

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17

Our Maire used to hand me a copy of his speech and ask me to do a quick precis for any Brits/non-French who might not understand him.

One year, after some very, very long speeches from visiting Officials… our Maire’s 6 pages proved the stick which broke the camel’s back…
Everyone, of whichever nationality, was standing with glazed expressions…

I gave the shortest precis ever… something along the lines of
"For various reasons, our School and our Commune need more children, so if you’re still young enough, don’t dither, get at it !

Many French understood my words and roared with laughter along with the Brits et al… :rofl:

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18

For the first time ever, our Maire is enabling a question and answer period of 30 minutes at the ceremony of self congratulation.
Mind you, questions are limited to 1 per household, must be submitted in writing 10 days in advance, must not be about any matter which is personal to the questioner, and must not be political in nature. The Maire will choose which questions to answer, and any questions deemed to require further research will be answered at a later date direct to the questioner.
No doubt the questions will be answered over the very distorted amplification system in our Salle des Fetes at the usual machine gun speed.

Basically it’s probably just another way of ‘democracy washing’ the dictatorial non consultative governance that is sadly the norm in our commune.
No, I shan’t be wasting my time in attending, and cancelling the whole thing is an excellent idea.

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19

Ours is called something different each year. The cérémonie des voeux is probably included but that’s never its title, always seems 2nd Friday of January or so.

Voting in the small commune looks evenly split 3 ways and we’ve had the same mayor re-elected since many years now so he must be doing something right :slight_smile:

I’m too far outside the centre and sans transport, in many years the invitations haven’t made it out as far as here it seems, this year’s reason for missing it seems to have already come up. So looks like next year!

20

I think if I lived in a village, it would be more important to support/attend the ceremonie. However
we live in a hamlet just outside a busy, little town of 1850 people. The ceremonie de voeux in the latter attracts a capacity crowd in the Salle des Fetes.
Being quite shy socially, I honestly don’t think our presence, or absence would be noticed by anyone. However the Maire commented in past years that only a minority of the inhabitants, being about 20%, actually show up. In part this may be due to a helpful, detailed quarterly summary of all Mairie activities that is already sent to each household, plus repeat versions on the FB page of the Maire and Mairie. Judging by reports, the ceremonie simply repeats the identical information, but over an extended hour and a half.

In terms of costs, our invite to the ceremonie arrived by franked post at a cost of 0.53€ - that’s about 500€ in total just for postage, taking into account the number of households. Adding in the costs of pot d’amitiés, lighting, heating etc, it’s probably a small amount in the overall grand scheme of things, but I do slightly question the priorities of holding the ceremonie if budgets are being squeezed.