French Municipal Elections 2008La Roche sur Foron

La Roche sur Foron, a town of a little over 12,000 is located in the center of the Geneva, Annecy, Cluses triangle in the Haute-Savoie department of France. This rather quiet but growing town, La Roche as locales say, went from a population of a little over 7,000 in 1990 to over 12,000 in 2006 - growth rate of over 45%. Driving through the town, one notices signs of continuing growth: many new housing units being built and streets being paved.

Growth, as one might expect, took center stage in the 2008 Municipal Elections. In French municipal elections, voters vote for a list of candidates, with the head of the list being elected mayor when a list wins. There were three lists that tried to displace the incumbent mayor, Michel Thabuis. Thabuis was reelected with a little over 48% of the vote.

During the election campaign the biggest criticism directed at Thabuis was that growth was not being managed correctly and thus the quality of life in La Roche was in decline. One candidate, Michel Montan, referred to La Roche as “La Roche sur Béton.” Béton means concrete in English. This is of course a reference to the amount of building occurring in La Roche during the last six years. The candidate team of Ali Harabi and Martine Giral-Feraille often cited a lack of growth oversight i.e. little town planning.

Criticism of the town’s budget, most notably the allocation of money for town events, was also an issue. The town’s budget was about 22 million euros per year. From 2001 to 2006 the events budget increased, depending on who you talk to from either € 63,000 to € 130,000 (Montant) or € 77,000 to € 110,000 (Thabuis). The mayor defended himself by saying that during his term La Roche increased the number of yearly events, improving the town’s quality of life.

There was also criticism of how the town is administered. Candidate Alain Guichard noted in a campaign flyer that La Roche was rated low for overall management by a national economic magazine.

Also criticized was that La Roche’s debt increased at what some call an alarming rate. According to Thabuis the debt per person fell from € 1,192 in 2000 to € 1,023 in 2007. Even if this is true it is still possible that the overall town debt increased due to the large growth in population as noted above. That is the per capita debt is spread over more people.

Two candidates: Montant and Martine Giral-Feraille were once allies of Thabuis but in 2008 ran against him. Montant was the president of the Thabuis support committee during the 2001 elections and Giral-Feraille was a deputy mayor. There was a meeting between Montant, Giral-Feraille and Ali Harabi. It was unclear what this meeting was about but one could speculate that there might have been a possible fusion between their respective lists. In the end there was no fusion.

Continue to the next page.

Click here to see the results of the first and second round.

Click here to see votes being counted.

Click here to see the four mayoral candidates, a link to their web site, slogan and a campaign flyer.