The Mayor and Me

Shortly after we moved to our small French village in the Loire Valley, I came up with what I thought was a very sensible idea.

“Hey D,” I said one morning, feeling rather pleased with myself. “I think we should introduce ourselves to the mayor.”

In my mind this sounded like the sort of thoughtful gesture that responsible people make when they arrive somewhere new. We were Americans moving into a small French village of about eight hundred people. Five wineries. One church. A few narrow streets. After that, it’s vineyards. In a place that small, it felt appropriate to introduce ourselves, to say hello, to acknowledge that we had arrived and that we intended to be good neighbors. It seemed polite. Responsible. Civic-minded.

In hindsight, it was an extraordinarily stupid idea.

The request itself was easy enough to make. Someone told me that if I stopped by the mairie, the town hall, and asked the secretary, she could schedule a quick meeting. Nothing formal. Just a brief introduction. I imagined something simple. Five minutes. A handshake. Maybe a few words about how happy we were to be there.

“Bonjour Monsieur le Maire,” I would say confidently, in the French I had carefully rehearsed.

“Nous sommes très heureux d’habiter ici.”

He would nod approvingly, welcome us to the village, and we would both go about our day. A tidy little exchange. The kind of thing that makes you feel like you’re doing life properly.

What I did not consider at the time was that my French consisted of approximately four words, two of which were bonjour and au revoir. But optimism is a powerful thing, so I scheduled the meeting.

At the time Denise didn’t question it, which is remarkable because Denise normally has an excellent instinct for identifying situations that are about to become awkward. But in the early days of our move everything felt slightly experimental. We were still figuring out how things worked. So when I told her later that day that the Mairie had emailed me back saying we could meet the mayor next Tuesday, she simply said, “Okay.”

Which I interpreted as approval.

Tuesday morning arrived perfectly normal. I thought about our meeting with the mayor. And that’s when the problem began.

Sometime around nine o’clock that morning, roughly two hours before the appointment, I started to think about what exactly I had done. I was sitting at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee when the realization crept in.

What, precisely, was the purpose of this meeting?

The mayor did not know us. We had no administrative issues. We weren’t applying for permits. We weren’t filing complaints. We were simply two Americans who had recently arrived and thought it might be nice to introduce ourselves.

The more I thought about it, the less normal it began to sound. I started imagining the secretary walking into the mayor’s office and explaining the situation. “Monsieur le Maire, the Americans are here.” The mayor would look up. “Why?” She would hesitate for a moment. “He would like to introduce himself.” There would be a pause. “Introduce himself?” “Yes.” Another pause. “Is there a problem?” “No.” And finally the question that would inevitably follow: “Then why is he here?”

That question began circling in my brain. Why was I there?

By ten o’clock I was seriously considering canceling the meeting. But canceling it seemed equally awkward. The secretary had taken the time to schedule it. The mayor had presumably set aside a few minutes in his day. Backing out felt worse than following through.

So I did what any rational person does in these situations. I hoped it would somehow work itself out.

We walked to the mairie just before eleven. The building itself is modest, like most village town halls. Stone walls, a few small offices, and oddly modern in places, which seems to happen a lot in France. It sometimes feels as if the country is quietly trying to escape its architectural past.

The secretary greeted us warmly. She spoke very quickly, which is a common feature of French conversations when your vocabulary is roughly equivalent to a preschooler’s. But I understood enough to know she was saying the mayor would see us shortly.

So we waited.

A moment later she opened a door and gestured for us to come in. The mayor stood up behind his desk as we entered. He was polite, formal in the understated way French officials tend to be. Not stiff, but clearly unsure what exactly was about to happen.

Then he indicated that we should follow him. So we did.

He led us down the hall and into a large conference room. Very large. Strangely large for a town of eight hundred people. In the middle of the room was a conference table that could easily seat twenty. The mayor walked around to the far side and gestured for Denise and me to sit down.

Which is how the three of us ended up at opposite sides of a table designed for a small committee.

Before we sat down, I introduced myself the best I could.

“Bonjour… je suis Paul.” I pointed toward Denise. “Denise.” He nodded. “Bonjour.”

We sat down.

And then something remarkable happened.

Nothing.

A silence settled into the room like a third person. The mayor looked at me. I looked at him. Each of us waiting for the other to explain why we were there. In that moment I realized something important. The mayor had absolutely no idea why I had asked to meet him. And unfortunately, neither did I.

I attempted a sentence, something about being happy to live in the village. It came out in fragments.

“Nous… habiter ici… très heureux.”

The mayor nodded politely, but his expression suggested that this information, while pleasant, did not explain the purpose of the meeting. Another silence settled in.

He leaned forward slightly and asked, “Vous avez une question?” Do you have a question? A perfectly reasonable inquiry. And the answer, unfortunately, was no.

I did not have a question. I had simply come to say hello, which I was beginning to realize is not generally a reason to schedule a meeting with the mayor of a French village.

To make matters slightly more interesting, I had recently learned that the mayor sitting across from me had been elected in a snap election after some local political drama involving the previous mayor. I didn’t know the full details at the time. Small towns tend to keep those things politely vague. But I knew enough to understand that the man sitting in front of me had been elected to restore calm and order to village life.

And now one of his first official meetings with a new resident involved an American who could barely speak French and apparently had no reason to be there.

Which was particularly unfortunate, because I hate small talk. In fact, I avoid it at all costs. Sitting there in the mayor’s office, I had the sudden realization that I had voluntarily placed myself into the exact sort of conversation I spend most of my life trying to escape. The kind where two people look at each other politely while searching for something to say that neither of them actually wants to talk about.

And now I was living my nightmare in real time: two grown men sitting across a comically oversized table, both waiting for the other to say something.

The silence stretched again.

At this point my brain began doing something it had not done in many years. It panicked.

I spent three decades in sales and management. I’ve walked into boardrooms, negotiated deals, delivered presentations to rooms full of people. But none of that prepares you for sitting in a small French office trying to explain why you scheduled a meeting you no longer believe should exist.

And that’s when my survival instinct kicked in.

Halfway through the meeting, somewhere between two long pauses, a thought appeared. We were renovating our house. And in France, if you are renovating a house, the mayor often knows the local artisans. Electricians. Plumbers. Carpenters.

Suddenly, a path forward emerged. I leaned forward slightly and said the first word that came to mind.

“Artisans.”

The mayor blinked.

I continued. “Maison… renovation.” I mimed something that might have been construction. Then I said the only trade I could remember in French. “Plombier?” Plumber. And something miraculous happened.

The mayor visibly relaxed. His shoulders dropped slightly. For the first time since we had entered the room, the meeting made sense.

Ah. The American needed help finding artisans. Now we had a topic. He reached for a pencil and began writing down a few local names on a piece of paper. I realized I hadn’t seen anyone use a pencil in years. Suddenly the conversation flowed. We nodded. He nodded. Everyone smiled politely.

Within minutes the meeting had transformed from a mysterious diplomatic encounter into a perfectly normal village interaction. An American homeowner looking for someone to help fix his house.

Which, in France, is a completely legitimate reason to visit the mayor.

A few minutes later we stood up, shook hands, and thanked him for his help.

“Merci beaucoup.”

He smiled. “Bienvenue dans le village.” Welcome to the village.

We stepped out of the mairie and into the sunlight. Denise looked at me for a moment.

“What was that?” she said. I thought about it. “I’m not entirely sure,” I said.

We walked back through the village square. A few people were sitting outside the café. Someone waved. Life in the village continued exactly as it had before the meeting.

The mayor, I imagine, went back to whatever he had been doing before two Americans appeared in his office with no clear purpose. I suspect he was relieved to discover that I simply needed a plumber.

Sometimes the most polite thing you can do in a small French village is simply live there quietly for a while… before introducing yourself to the mayor.