first spoke to Mrs Blakemore in autumn 2018<\/a>, shortly after she applied for nationality. She said at the time she had always planned to apply, but the situation had made her concentrate her efforts.<\/p>\nShe said: \u201cI have to admit in 2020, having campaigned with the mayor that I’d worked with for six years during 2014-20, I was so disappointed, as indeed were many people in the commune, to see that my nationality was a week too late.<\/p>\n
\u201cEveryone had been asking if I was going to present myself again \u2013 I said of course I am!\u201d<\/p>\n
Having to drop out also presented a problem with there being enough names on the list, though a volunteer was found at the last minute, she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor our commune, which is less than a thousand people, our current team is 11 councillors and two in reserve, in case anyone resigns or dies.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“And as of this year there are rules on gender parity too, but that wasn\u2019t a complication for us, thankfully. So, we’ve got a fabulous team of 13 and we’re all very enthusiastic to get started.\u201d<\/p>\n
It was agreed with Ms Guichon a year ago that she would be on the list, she said. \u201cShe said \u2018would you like to?\u2019 And I said I can\u2019t wait, I\u2019ve been waiting for you to ask.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the village there was only one list, and only one round. Her main responsibilities will include communication: such as a newsletter, events, culture and heritage.\u00a0<\/p>\n
She is also looking forward to organising clearing overgrown communal footpaths, to recreate a circular walk around the area, and returning to her old role keeping records of who is on the electoral register.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are having a new salle polyculturelle built and I’m looking forward to bringing together all the multi-generations of people that we’ve got for social and cultural activities. We\u2019ve got a very wide spread, from babies right through to a 91-year-old.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mrs Blakemore added: \u201cThe other councillors congratulated me and when I went out in the village the week after the election strangers came up to me, who had seen my photograph in our local paper. We’re in a very small community and word gets around.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mrs Blakemore was formerly a university administrator in the UK.<\/p>\n
She has never felt treated differently due to her British nationality, but the couple were initially a \u201cnovelty\u201d as the only Britons, and some people affectionately call her la petite anglaise. <\/p>\n
Ms Guichon said: \u201cWe lived through that difficult period with her – it was sad and complicated and we tried to do what we could to help, but there wasn\u2019t enough time.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“She\u2019s very committed and really wanted to make herself useful.
\nHer professional experience is also a plus as is the fact she speaks English, but it\u2019s her personality and the person she is that really makes the difference.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Retiree Karen Blakemore lost her seat in Saint-Merd-de-Lapleau in Corr\u00e8ze six years after her first election in 2014…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":877221,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5226],"tags":[802,748,2000,299,5187,1699,4884,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-877220","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-brexit","8":"tag-brexit","9":"tag-britain","10":"tag-eu","11":"tag-europe","12":"tag-european","13":"tag-european-union","14":"tag-great-britain","15":"tag-uk","16":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116361620216182153","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/877220","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=877220"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/877220\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/877221"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=877220"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=877220"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=877220"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}