Even if it’s cold, even if it’s slippery, even if it makes a real mess on the roads, everyone loves snow. Everyone ? Maybe not. Taken hostage by 4 cm of powder snow during the last snowy episode, certain residents of the town of Raillencourt-Saint-Olle, in the North, strongly criticized their mayor for not having salted the streets and sidewalks. In response, the elected official, Bernard de Narda, issued a municipal decree to prohibit snow from falling.
“From now on, if the snow falls in Raillencourt-Saint-Olle, she does not risk a fine but I will yell at her,” jokes the mayor of the town, joined by 20 minutes this Thursday. The fact is that, since then, not a snowflake has come to spoil the lives of its citizens. “The idea was above all to react with humor to the numerous calls from residents complaining that the town hall had not cleared the roads and sidewalks,” he admits.
“These people who complain are on welfare”
“Today, people are no longer tolerant, they are complaining about 4 cm of snow when it was predicted and they could have made their own arrangements,” continues Bernard de Narda. “The mayor is not responsible for everything, these people who complain are people on welfare,” he laments.
However, the main road had been treated by the department’s services. For the remaining 16 km of roads, “the municipality does not have the means to invest in such means for something which happens more and more rarely”, insists the elected official.
This municipal decree, by its incongruous side, intends to bring the inhabitants of Raillencourt-Saint-Olle into perspective: “There is more serious in life than a few centimeters of snow, look at the inhabitants of Pas-de-Calais, flooded three times in a few months,” pleads the mayor. He was also looking to create buzz and, since our colleagues at the Voice of the North revealed the affair, Bernard de Narda’s phone is heating up. Not because of the local residents inconvenienced by the winter cold, but rather because of the journalists!