In Nabirat, the mayor, Yvette Vigié, 93 years old, is running for a seventh term

In Nabirat, a small village of 340 inhabitants in the Dordogne nestled in the Périgord region, the municipal election took on the air of a final sprint. On Sunday, March 15, Yvette Vigié, 93, the incumbent mayor and retired nurse, was re-elected in the first round for a seventh term. Such longevity is rare, almost disconcerting, in a France where political faces change rapidly… except when the ballot box chooses continuity.

On Sunday, the result was razor-thin: only three votes separated the winning list from the opposition, in a campaign described locally as tense. The timing is that of municipalities without a second round of voting, where inaugural municipal council meetings are held until March 22nd to elect the mayor and deputy mayors. Here, the equation is simple and very concrete: a majority, however narrow, and the same person in the mayor's office.

Three votes apart, and a whole country is wondering

Three votes separated them, and the whole country is wondering. Faced with these doubts, Yvette Vigié brushed aside the question of age with a calm wave of her hand. "It doesn't matter to me at all. I'm in excellent health. Physically and mentally, everything is fine," she asserted, adding: "Life will decide when I have to leave. But when the time comes, I will leave." In the village, her supporters invoke her experience, her knowledge of the area, her close ties to the community—the kind of connection that no national discourse can truly replace when it comes to roads, water, neighbors, and the small decisions that shape daily life.

On the other side, Gary Fraysse, a former supermarket manager, defends a different, more sensible idea: setting an age limit to avoid, he says, a governance crisis should the elected official have to interrupt her term. The debate extends beyond Nabirat, because the rule is clear: in France, there is no age limit for becoming mayor, a position in which the mayor is elected by the municipal councilors after local elections. The inevitable and highly political challenge remains: managing another term, calming a village divided in two, and going the distance, perhaps even nearing 100 years old.