How Verteillac's mayor revived a French village through community engagement

Nearly a year ago, Régis Defraye stood on stage at the Folies Bergères in Paris to deliver a 20-minute talk. He was one of several elected officials invited by the Fédération des Trucs Qui Marchent to highlight positive outcomes from their work.

Mr Defraye, 66, is the mayor of Verteillac, a Dordogne village of 600 residents. Thanks to strong local mobilisation, the commune has regained the charm and vitality expected of a French village.

“I did not want to be mayor,” he said. He had originally hoped to stand as councillor in the 2020 municipal elections.

But returning to his native village in 2019, he saw decline. “Shops were closing one by one, we no longer had a committee for parties and cultural events. There was no soul left,” he recalled.

The turning point came after he attended 11 council meetings. What he heard disturbed him so much he could not sleep. By morning, he had resolved to run for mayor.

He did things differently – and was elected.

Five years later, Verteillac feels reborn. The commune counts 20 associations, hosts 100 concerts a year, and has opened new housing, a campsite and sports facilities.

Thirteen shops now thrive across the village.

Mr Defraye told The Connexion how he did it.

Was this project already in your programme in 2020, or did you have the idea once you took office?

Let me wind this back a little bit. I am a native of Verteillac but left for professional reasons. When our children left home, my wife and I decided to move back to Verteillac. I commuted back-and-forth between Orléans or Paris and Verteillac until I finally retired and settled full-time. That was a year prior to the municipal elections of 2020.

I was seeing a dying village and it hurt me. Shops closed one by one, we no longer had a committee for parties and cultural events. The local greengrocer was the only merchant left in the farmer’s market. There was no soul left, nothing was happening. No concerts, no events. The population was shrinking, mainly due to deaths. We had lost 20% of our population during the previous term. Warning signs had turned red. But I did not want to be mayor. I asked the mayor to put me on his list as a councillor. Two and a half months passed by, during which I did not hear anything until I attended these 11 council meetings.

We needed to do things differently – meaning together. The idea was to build a collective, bringing together people from Verteillac who felt as I did. Second, the group had to be diverse. We created a Facebook group, then worked on our values, communicated, and launched our campaign.

What was your campaign selling-point?

We set our values: unite our differences; listen and respect; be supportive; revive our village; come together. What do they mean? They mean that we are non-sectarian, apolitical. The only thing that mattered was reviving our village with projects and a better atmosphere. That was our PR campaign.

And did it work? People could have said it was just words…

We campaigned through our Facebook page ‘Collectif Verteillacois’. We held three public meetings. We expected 10 people over our first. A hundred came – out of 600 inhabitants. By the end, 78 ideas emerged. In the second meeting, we narrowed them down to 24 projects. Those 24 projects became our programme.

“I only applied techniques from my corporate experience,” you said. Can you explain?

I spent most of my career working for IBM, a large American multinational company. I joined as an engineer, overseeing technical aspects, became a business engineer, then moved to sales before evolving as regional director. I lived in a constant flow of ideas and procedures and navigated many different departments of a company. I know what I am talking about when it comes to HR, finance, objectives, and management.

What I have witnessed is the attitude toward failure, which is completely different to how a French environment tackles it. My father used to say: “What is the difference between a French and an American engineer? A French one cannot make mistakes. He will do three projects a year and they must succeed. An American engineer will do 10 projects a year and fail at three. In football, the score is 7-3. That is called a landslide.” The volume of production is far greater in the US. That is the culture I brought to this commune.

In short, you reused concepts of participatory democracy. Why does it work here?

It works, but it is no nirvana. Some committees work well, others less so. The model is not perfect but it works.

Why? Because of two things: first, a good atmosphere. We removed political divisions within a few quarters. We are transpartisan – with people voting from the far-right Rassemblement National (RN) to far-left La France Insoumise (LFI). This does not mean people are against political parties. It means that, in Verteillac, priorities lie elsewhere.

The second thing is that people work around tools such as committees or plan de développement culturel (cultural development plan), for instance. It certainly is working. 20 associations were founded, 13 new businesses opened, 100 concerts are held per year, a new housing project opened, as well as a campsite and a sports facility. And there are many more to come in the near future. I currently have 28 projects in development. That is the American method I mentioned.

You speak of ‘démocratie implicative’ rather than participatory democracy. What do you mean?

Participation alone is not enough. It can even be dangerous. In big cities or small villages, you often get 6% of responses from citizens when you ask their opinion through questionnaires. Should we make decisions based on 4% of the population? That’s not acceptable. At Verteillac, participation reached 80% because people were implicated.

That figure, however, is only achievable in rural areas. The key is speaking directly with people – which takes time. Even in a small village of 600, 15 elected officials cannot meet everyone. We came up with a solution to partner with the local postman.

We added a questionnaire to the town bulletin. The postman asked three questions when delivering mail, collecting answers for our surveys. 

Many people refused to be mayor. I realised many French people have skills and want to serve their village, city or country but do not want to be elected. This is the reason why I came up with the committees.

Participation is just about giving opinions. That is anecdotal, not productive. I want people to work. Implicative democracy is a process where people actually come up with AND do things. That is why it works – because I do not do everything myself.

You once said that ideally you would no longer be needed. Is that your ambition for Verteillac, to fade away?

That is what I have been trying to do, to eventually step back. The municipality, however, still needs time to fix things. Beyond projects, our job was as much about getting serious about the town’s finances and legal issues. When the collective took over, rivers had not been maintained since 1964, the cemetery was unmanaged. The work is not finished. That is why the collective will run for a second term.

How do you see the current wave of mayoral resignations? Does your model give a roadmap for what the job holds in the future?

Everyone is different. But society is more complex, and demands more skills. That is especially true for rural mayors who lack the resources of large cities. Being mayor requires time. I believe it is incompatible with another job. It is full-time.

Is delegating essential?

Yes, it is indispensable. The whole system rests on it. Each elected official has a delegation, with an allowance instead of expense reimbursements. Not out of comfort, but to make them autonomous and prevent burnout over time.

How did Britons of Verteillac take part in the process?

We have a relatively small foreign community, about 30 people including 25 Britons. Increasingly, people from Singapore, the US, and South Africa are buying here. It is attractive, but that trend must remain reasonable and low in scale.

We were elected without the British vote, considering they can no longer be councillors since Brexit. Two months after our election, I organised a meeting with the British community in and around Verteillac. Over 50 people came, sometimes from 25 kilometres away. I meet with five to six British people every week.

Verteillac introduced educational games in English at the childcare centre, run by English residents. The primary school offers extra English classes, taught by former teachers with very high standards. We also have bilingual conversation classes. All of this is free, thanks to volunteer work by our British community.

They are very valuable for rural France. They bring skills, stories and expertise. It is important that they take part.

The growth of ‘Things that work’

How local elected officials are sharing initiatives for the greater good

There are many Régis Defrayes and Verteillacs across France.

Mr Defraye was highlighted by the Fédération des Trucs Qui Marchent, an association that showcases positive actions – or ‘Things That Work’ – led by local elected officials.

It was co-founded in 2022 by Raphaël Ruegger, a 24-year-old councillor in Neuvy-sur-Barangeon (Cher), and Christophe Arnoux, co-founder of the consulting firm Evidence.

Mr Ruegger toured small villages to speak with mayors and councillors about local initiatives and whether they could be replicated elsewhere.

Each year, the association selects 10 projects and honours them during a November event in Paris.

“When you visit rural France, you see it is not as bad as sometimes portrayed. Rural mayors and officials are the cornerstone of democracy and should be supported,” Mr Ruegger told Ouest-France.

Among the most successful projects are the Passeport de civisme, a civic passport for pupils now adopted in 600 town halls, and La beauté sauve le monde, an initiative to display paintings on public billboards.

The association has also created a toolkit for local councils ahead of the 2026 municipal elections. It includes flash cards summarising successful initiatives and guidance on how to adapt them.

The fourth edition of its annual event will take place on November 17 at the Cirque d’Hiver Bouglione in Paris.