Perpignan’s smelly socks scandal

How to vote in a local election

What are the French words for the following?

• Smelly
• Socks
• Election
• Scandal
• Mayor

In my terrible French, these translate as:

• L’odeur
• Les chaussettes
• L’élection
• Le scandale
• Le maire

I needed these words to follow “La fraude à la chaussette à Perpignan”. This is the almost farcical scandal that started in Perpignan’s local elections last year, when the head of a polling station caused a right stink after trying to fiddle the result – by stuffing ballot papers in his socks.

When the votes were counted, said head Georges Garcia was caught with the ballot papers supporting UMP candidate Jean-Paul Alduy.

Garcia was then caught a second time, trying to get shut of some envelopes containing ballot papers.

Le président d’un bureau de vote, Georges Garcia, avait été surpris en possession de bulletins Alduy dans ses poches et ses chaussettes, puis une deuxième fois en pleine tentative de faire disparaître des enveloppes contenant des bulletins de vote

It was nothing less than “une fraude menée par dissimulation de bulletins dans une chaussette d’un président de bureau de vote”.

Garcia happens to be a brother of one of Alduy’s prospective town council colleagues.

Alduy won by a mere 574 votes out of 41,938 ballots cast. Garcia’s polling station gathered 825 ballots.

Street protests

The day after the election, protestors took to the streets of Perpignan, brandishing clothes lines lined with socks.

This week the election result was finally overturned by the higher courts. The decision could mean lots of legal contests over elections in the future.