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Are you in favor of stopping the church bells at night?"
It is to this question that must answer some of the inhabitants of Ceyrat (Puy-de-Dôme), from Monday, November 15, after the protests of residents inconvenienced by the bells.
The inhabitants of Boisséjour, a district of this town of more than 6,000 inhabitants, are invited by the mayor Anne-Marie Picard to participate in a citizen consultation until Friday to decide whether the bells of their church should be stopped between 10 p.m. and 7 a.m., the director of town hall services Christophe Serre told AFP.
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Each household - or 300 people - will have the right to one vote and the mayor will comply with the result after the counting scheduled in the presence of a bailiff to avoid any dispute,
" said Christophe Serre.
Polling stations have been set up at the post office, the town hall and the school canteen.
600 rings in 24 hours
The affair had started in the spring with the complaint of a new inhabitant who said he was inconvenienced by the ringing of bells every half hour, night and day. In an interview with the daily
La Montagne
, the man estimated the total number of rings at 600, counting the angelus at 7:00 a.m., noon and 7:00 p.m., and also denounced their sound level. He had started a petition asking for the bells to be stopped at night, but another petition had collected around 300 signatures for their maintenance.
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Technically, we can cut the bells at night as is the case in the other church in the town, but faced with the differences, the mayor preferred to collect the opinions of the citizens
", underlines Christophe Serre, specifying that the frequency the ringing of the bells is fixed by municipal decree.