Watch out for the pillow failure! The inhabitants of Merxheim, in the Haut-Rhin, saw their usual alarm clock be disrupted this summer. The Angelus bells, which ring for almost three minutes every morning, noon and evening, no longer ring at the same time.
Since the restoration of the church clock, it is no longer 6 o’clock but 7 o’clock. “We discovered this in July. The mayor had decided that on his own, probably because a few tourists had complained. There are a few lodgings around…”, regrets Denis Schneider.
This “child of the village” has since been at the origin of a sling against this change. At the end of August, he denounced him on Facebook. “I just remind you that these Angelus ringtones have been around for a very, very long time and no one has complained so far. This 6 o’clock bell allows, among other things, people who get up every morning to work to have a bearing. I just notice that a minority of people can move mountains, I think it’s time to ring the bells for them! “, he wrote as well. A widely liked (403 times) and commented (213) post.
In the process, the building contractor also launched a petition in favor of “safeguarding the Angelus at 6 o’clock”. To date, 454 people have signed it, which represents about a third of the inhabitants of this town located between Colmar and Mulhouse.
“Everything was decided on the sly”
What to make the town hall react? Yes, but not in the sense hoped for by Denis Schneider since the new schedule has been validated by the municipal council. “When the mayor brought it together, there were a lot of people missing,” still plagues the former opponent, who was elected on the same list as the city councilor in the last elections. “If a referendum had been organized and it had been validated, I would comply with the decision. But there, everything was decided on the sly, without consultation. The problem is here. »
The whistleblower still hopes for a decline “because today, only a minority is happy”. The mayor did not respond to requests from 20 minutes. “On vacation now” according to his secretariat, he does not hear the Angelus.