As the mayor of Guérande in western France, Nicolas Criaud helped secure €10mn to renovate the town’s medieval church, which needed repairs from the roof to the stained-glass windows after a century of neglect.
The Collégiale Saint-Aubin is among Criaud’s most visible achievements in the town of about 17,000 famous for its salt marshes. Yet as the former entrepreneur seeks re-election, he says many voters are focusing instead on shortages of doctors, high heating bills and classroom closures: issues the mayor has no control over.
“When a mayor walks down the street, he is rarely thanked: instead he is told of all the dysfunction,” says Criaud, of the centre-right Horizons party. “We are the last rampart. People need to express their frustrations to us, even if it is in inappropriate, angry ways.”