- Telegraph.co.uk

British mayor of French town takes next step
By Henry Samuel in Paris

France's only British mayor is to launch his campaign to enter party politics next week after two successful terms as head of a rural village in lower Normandy.
Ken Tatham - known by the 150 inhabitants of St Céneri le Gérai as "Monsieur le maire" - is putting the finishing touches to his manifesto before kicking off his bid next Friday.

The 62-year old hopes to become France's first British regional councillor for the Alençon-1 canton in the Orne department.
He estimates the region has between 6,000 and 7,000 British inhabitants.

Mr Tatham is also running for a third term as mayor of St Céneri - a place once voted one of France's most beautiful villages - after 13 years in charge.

"They forget that I'm a Brit, until election time comes, when they bring up the Hundred Years War. But today I'd probably be on the French side anyway," Mr Tatham said.

The tall Yorkshireman with a closely cropped white beard is confident that the villagers will re-elect him - he won 80 per cent of the vote last time - but he expects the regional battle to be far tougher against the outgoing Socialist counsellor, Joaquim Pueyo, who has been in office for 18 years now.
"I've got a difficult fight on my hands but there's no point in not trying," he told The Daily Telegraph.
Both elections are on March 9 next year.

Mr Tatham, who has been living in France for 38 years, is running for the Nouveau Centre (New Centre) party - a new centre-right group close to Nicolas Sarkozy's UMP party and whose inaugural congress is on Sunday. It's leader, Hervé Morin, is defence minister.
"I like Sarkozy's open government but his omnipresence annoys me," said the mayor, an admirer of Margaret Thatcher.
He intends to focus his campaign on sustainable development, better services for children and incentives for professionals thinking of working in rural or semi-rural areas.
To pursue his political ambitions Mr Tatham became a French citizen around 15 years ago.
He did not, however, give up his British citizenship.

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