in Doubs, parity prevents a mayor from being head of the listing | EUROtoday

Sarah Vionnet, mayor of a small city in Doubs, is a candidate for re-election. But she was pressured to depart the pinnacle of the listing to a person due to a regulation supposed to advertise parity, a state of affairs which she described Thursday as“ubiquitous”.

At 48 years previous, the present mayor (and not using a label) of Myon, a village of 185 inhabitants about 25 kilometers south of Besançon, defined to Agence France-Presse (AFP) that she turned conscious of the issue by finishing a doc that she should return to the prefecture and on which she should report the names of her municipal operating mates.

To respect the alternation between women and men and in order that there should not two consecutive males’s names, “I have to start with a man because I have seven men and six women on my list”detailed the mayor. “I found it a bit ludicrous when people talk to us about parity…”testifies M^me Vionnet, elected in 2020.

“In principle, it bothers me”

The regulation of May 21, 2025 extends the parity listing voting methodology to municipalities with lower than 1,000 inhabitants, which signify 70% of French municipalities, particularly in an effort to strengthen parity. In municipalities with lower than 1,000 inhabitants, municipal councils solely have 37.6% girls.

“I am in a small village where there are less than 200 inhabitants. We all know each other. People know very well that I am going to want to run for a new term as mayor”explains the elected official, who nevertheless regrets that her identify shouldn’t be “not displayed as head of list”. “In principle, it bothers me”.

However, this could not stop her from being appointed mayor since it’s the municipal council which elects the mayor throughout its first assembly after the municipal election. “Concretely, I will manage to run for mayor, that’s not the problem, but, symbolically, that doesn’t suit me”testifies M^me Vionnet.

“I especially think of all the other women who are arriving and who will not be able to appear at the top of the list as they would have liked”provides the elected official, who alerted Doubs senator Jean-François Longeot (Centrist Union) to this drawback.