Fighting a war as I am on two fronts against the vagaries of old beams and the arcane linguistics of motor home manuals, I have no need to add a third one. But sometimes, fronts get added whether you like it or not.

Much as I am a francophile on many issues, this doesn’t include the country’s 1000 year old love affair with bureaucracy. Lest we forget, it was Guillaume le Conquereur who came up with the Domesday Book, the world’s first job creation scheme designed to measure how much every Anglo-Saxon had of everything…in order that the Normans could hoover most of it up for themselves, and every last man Jack of us would pay our tithes and our taxes. (I say ‘us’ dear reader, but I am 50% Celt – and thus very little of this has much to do with me).

But the funny thing about France is that, the more you dig into daft laws, ordinances and regulations, the more you realise most of them tend to come from minor-league local socialist politicians, ego-driven national politicians in all the colours plus all the sizes, and pinched goblin bureaucrats in the local tax office. Few if any of the culprits are those ENAs who graduated from the élite Ecole Nationale d’Administration.

For example, the ENAs told the French farmers to plant more wheat four years ago…because they could see the way the market was going. Right across France, les fermiers switched to wheat.

But it was the fluffier Green politicians (in unholy alliance with the all-powerful farmers’ lobby) who built up a head of steam resulting in the latest – and surely the daftest – law of all time: the November 2011 ban on having bonfires at any time during the year in France.

Look, during July in the southern forests and near to wheat crops, the ban would make eminent sense. But all the year round everywhere? This is the French equivalent of the UK’s hunting ban: townie Greens and pinched-goblin farmers’ leaders dictating to everyone else.

Consider: what is one to do with the rubbish left behind by everything from builders to nature? The dechetteries (recycling centres) here will not accept more than four visits by each householder per year with rubbish beyond a given volume. Builders who turn up with large vans and trailers are automatically turned away…unless a pourboire is offered. WhatTF are people supposed to do with their rubbish – fashion it into a non-representational sculpture?

The French being the French, each day now – before the crops are planted and while we are having a dry spell – all my neighbours in this predominantly agricultural area are gaily burning old vines, windfall branches, junked kitchen units the dechets won’t accept, and young elms devastated by the latest blight. The average citizen here ignores daft laws – and to hell with the consequences.

One such was the blanket – no exceptions allowed – law passed eight years ago in France demanding that every swimming pool owner get a pool alarm. Not only was the Government all over the place about which alarms had its approval, various amendments then confused things further by saying certain pool covers would suffice. This was after thousands of owners (panicked by the original draft) had built ghastly fences around their pools at great expense.

The issue – laudably enough – was safety: small children drowning in pools without alarms. But you need to bear the following points in mind:

1. The law was pushed through by 1 (one) junior Minister whose nephew had drowned in such an incident

2. The number of children drowned in French domestic swimming pools during 2008 was….eleven.

3. The fire brigade (oddly enough, the people most called to such incidents) testified that 67% of such tragedies occurred between 6-7 pm during the summer weekends. And what are most parents doing at that hour? Quite.

4. The law eventually only required that people have a record of having bought a suitable alarm or pool cover. As with many such potty laws, the hardware involved usually winds up in the attic.

In fact, it was the ENAs who realised how daft the law was, and made some sense of it. Whether that was the case when it comes to the ban on burning rubbish I’m not entirely certain. But as the ENAs rebuffed the madcap Greenpeace lobby against nuclear electricity generation 15 years ago (a rebuttal that has made French electricity the cheapest in Europe) it seems likely that, sooner rather than later, they will try to render the bonfire of inanities sane. Mind you, they’re dealing to some extent with the farming lobby, so anything could happen.

Earlier at The Slog: Why the neoliberal swimming pool is a cesspit