Europe 1 with AFP 4:27 p.m., April 01, 2022

Communication campaigns, bonuses for municipal officials, pampered volunteers: in the Rhône as elsewhere, town halls are mobilizing in all directions to provide polling stations with assessors, in a context deemed "rather better" than before.

Each polling station in France will have to count for these two evenings, two assessors and a volunteer secretary.

On April 10 and 24, 48.8 million registered French people are called to go to the polls for the presidential election.

Volunteers or chosen, some will lend a hand to the elected officials for the reception of the public and the smooth running of the vote.

Each of the approximately 70,000 polling stations in France will have to have a minimum of two assessors and a volunteer secretary for these two evenings, in addition to the president recruited from among the elected officials.

"Finally a good excuse not to go running on Sunday morning. Become an assessor for one of our polling stations!" Suggests the city of Lyon on Twitter, which launched a large volunteer recruitment campaign in early February. growing abstention.

Training offered

"The City has always taken the lead," Bertrand Maes, deputy in charge of general administration, told AFP, stressing the effectiveness of this type of call over the past two years.

"We always end up finding", he underlines, even despite the anxiety-provoking context of the Covid-19 which marked the previous elections.

In the capital of Gaul, no less than 608 assessors must occupy the 304 polling stations for the presidential and legislative elections (June 12-19).

A one-day preliminary training is offered to them.

"For the municipal and metropolitan elections of 2020, the City had beaten the recall and each polling station had been able to be opened", recalls Mr. Maes, while remembering the logistical difficulties of this double ballot, the second round of which had been postponed. due to confinement.

Ledion Lakuriqi, in the office of the town hall of Saint-Fons, a left-wing town in south-east Lyon, also admits to being in "a more comfortable situation than in 2020", particularly in terms of logistics, given that "the question of Covid measures no longer arise".

Bonus of 300 euros

In Vaulx-en-Velin, a popular suburb of Lyon which often records record abstention rates, we manage to fill the offices thanks to the assessors appointed by the parties.

Each candidate can in fact appoint one per office.

"If we do not count the elected officials, they represent about 50% of the volunteers", explains the socialist municipality which has 20 offices.

On the side of Villeurbanne, a socialist commune at the gates of Lyon, the emphasis is rather on the "citizen approach" of loyal voters from one election to the next.

They spontaneously offer to help on polling Sundays, it is said at the town hall.

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Also, since December, "a good hundred applications" have been received for the 160 positions to be filled by the first round.

A momentum which has increased "in recent weeks", thanks to the suspension of the vaccination pass and the wearing of a mask in a majority of places of public life.

"The situation is rather better than what we have been able to experience in the past two years", we add, satisfied to be "in a position to open the polling stations without problem on Sunday April 10 in the morning".

Meal and snack trays offered

If, on the day of the poll, assessors or secretaries are missing, two solutions present themselves: "the president of an office can recruit on the spot among the voters present and the municipality can solicit municipal agents voting in Villeurbanne", explains the town hall.

In the latter case, civil servants benefit from a gross remuneration package of 300 euros, "regardless of their mission during the day".

And if the shortage persists, the civic reserve can help to urgently power empty offices, in particular via its platform (www.jeveuxaider.gouv.fr).

In most municipalities, meal trays, coffees, cold drinks and snacks are offered to Sunday workers, who are not forced to attend the counting.

"With organic and local products prepared by the central kitchen (...) We pamper them!", We emphasize in Villeurbanne.