One Government Post at a Time Rarely Enough for French Politicians

Maurice Ligot is the mayor of Cholet, but he spends no more than three or four days a week in this historical and industrial town of 60,000 in western France. For the rest of the week, the soft-spoken, silver-haired, 59-year-old mayor is in Paris as a deputy of the French National Assembly.

The mayor’s absences are not an electoral issue. In fact, they work to his political advantage.

“In France,” Ligot said on a recent weekend in Cholet, “a town whose mayor is not a deputy is looked on as not much of a town. It doesn’t matter which party is in power. A deputy has influence in Paris to get things done for his town.”

It works the other way as well. Politicians in Paris feel that they can best keep in close touch with their voters if they hold on to the job of mayor. Of the 575 deputies in the National Assembly, 243 are also mayors of their cities and towns. Almost all the others also hold other posts.

Chirac Is Mayor of Paris

Even those who run the government of France like to run some town as well. Premier Jacques Chirac is still the mayor of Paris and, in fact, lives in a luxurious apartment in the Paris City Hall rather than in the official residence of the premier. One of Chirac’s Socialist predecessors, Pierre Mauroy, served as premier and mayor of Lille at the same time.

In another arrangement that might strike an American as odd, Francois de Laboulaye kept his job as mayor of the small town of Saint-Saens from 1977 to 1982, even though in those years he was far across the Atlantic as France’s ambassador to Washington.

In short, Ligot, a deputy who sits with the moderate Union for the French Democracy in Premier Chirac’s conservative coalition majority in the Chamber of Deputies of the National Assembly, holds to an honored tradition.

Over the years, a number of critics have derided politicians for diluting their services and fattening their pockets while holding too many elected positions. Politicians with many jobs, the critics say, are inefficient and prone to absenteeism.

In a case often cited as a notorious example, Jean Lecanuet, a conservative leader, held five jobs: deputy in the National Assembly, mayor of Rouen, deputy in the European Parliament, member of his region’s council and member of his department’s council.

A deputy receives 33,460 francs a month ($5,575), including an allowance for housing in Paris. In theory, a mayor does not get paid. But the government gives every mayor an allowance to cover expenses. These mayoral allowances vary with the size of the city. In the case of Cholet, it comes to 9,340 francs a month ($1,560).

New Law Limits Posts

In response to the criticism, the National Assembly passed a law last year limiting a politician to no more than two elected posts. There was some grumbling when the law was proposed. In 1975, Rene Monory, who is now the minister of education but was then a senator, mayor, president of the regional council and president of the department’s council, said:

“The thing that bothers me most about the bill is the way it presents as pariahs politicians with several jobs.”

Eventually, as his terms expire, Lecanuet will have to decide which three posts to drop. Ligot, who is also a member of his department’s council, will have to drop one job. The two jobs that Ligot and most French politicians are likely to try to keep are that of deputy and mayor.

This combination makes the most sense. The job of mayor supplies a French deputy with the kind of power and staff that any ordinary American congressman possesses and that any ordinary French deputy lacks.

Under the French parliamentary system, a deputy has limited duties and powers. Committees exist but have little responsibility or influence, and few French listen to or heed what an ordinary deputy says in the National Assembly.

The debate over proposed legislation usually takes place in the ministries and Cabinet, and the government often expects that a bill passed by the National Assembly will differ very little from the bill that was introduced. The deputies do amend bills but usually only after consulting the government.

Moreover, as in most parliaments other than the U.S. Congress, the French National Assembly is governed by party discipline. A defeat for a significant government bill probably means the fall of the government, and a deputy from the ruling party cannot take the risk of endangering his leaders by voting against the bill. To some extent, that makes the job hollow.

“As a deputy, you have a vote in the assembly,” Ligot said, “but you do not have the power to carry anything out. And, of course, sometimes you are forced to vote with your party even when you disagree with it.”

Informal Duty

A deputy, in fact, finds that one of the most significant duties is informal. The deputy lobbies ministries in Paris to seek favors and benefits for his constituents. In a highly centralized system like France’s, Paris is the source of most public funds. A mayor with duties as a deputy in Paris is surely a step ahead of any other mayor who has no excuse to spend half of every week lobbying in the capital.

A deputy without any other job has few resources to make himself influential and powerful. A mayor, on the other hand, is an executive.

“I have a complete administration as a mayor,” Ligot said in his spacious office in his modern city hall. “As a deputy, I have a staff of only three or four.”

The government provides deputies with allowances to hire a secretary at 17,240 francs a month ($2,875) and two to three assistants at 20,000 francs ($3,335).

Ligot kept his job as mayor even when he was a minister in Premier Raymond Barre’s Cabinet in the 1970s. As minister, however, he found it impossible to spend as many as the three to four days he now spends in Cholet.

But he functioned as mayor with the help of three elected assistant mayors and a staff of civil servants trained and supplied by the central government in Paris. Under the centralized French system, with Paris supplying personnel and making a large number of local decisions, the post of mayor is not looked on as a full-time job.

The dual role of French politicians like Ligot sometimes causes confusion.

“Of course people confuse the roles,” he said. “When they write me a letter, they are not always sure whether they want me to help them as the deputy or as the mayor. They usually just write to Monsieur Ligot.”

Contact With People

Since ordinary French people do not think they can influence the course of legislation very much, their closest contact with politicians is at the municipal level. As a result, the job of mayor gives French politicians their best chance to keep in close contact with their constituents.

Like most mayors anywhere in the world, Ligot, whose friendly warmth often breaks through his air of reserve and formality, spends a good deal of time meeting his citizens and promoting his town. When he is back in Cholet, local issues usually outweigh national issues.

On a recent Saturday, for example, the mayor officiated at the finals of the National Festival of Amateur Theater, which is held in Cholet every two years. A jury headed by French actress Sylvia Montfort awarded first prize to a high school from Laval for an original, zany work about women working in an office. Some city officials worried a bit that the play, with a jazzy, relentless kind of rhetoric, might be too avant-garde, but the prize pleased the mayor.

“The play was modern but not absurd,” he said later. “It will be good for Cholet when word spreads about the kind of play that won the festival. Young troupes will want to come to Cholet.”

Many French knew Cholet from their history books as the center of the Vendee Rebellion in 1793 against the leaders of the French Revolution. More recently, Cholet, just west of the vineyards of the Loire valley, has earned the reputation of a well-run, middle-size city able to attract industry.

Long a center of textile manufacturing, it now produces more shoes than any other city in France and can boast of a Japanese electronics factory. But, like most French industrial cities, Cholet is in some economic difficulty.

10% Unemployment Rate

“We have an unemployment rate of 10%,” Ligot said. “That’s 1% less than the national level and 3% less than the regional level, but it is still not good. Compared to unemployment, nothing else in Cholet is a problem.”

Ligot’s career closely parallels that of most French politicians. He studied law, politics and administration in Paris and entered the civil service in 1956. The civil service is looked on as a respected and prestigious career in France, an excellent training ground for politics.