The Mayor of A Town in France Took Her April Fool's Joke Way Too Far

Anything can happen on April Fool’s day. The trick is to trust no one for the full 24 hours. 

No one but your government, of course… right? Because when your local politician makes an announcement about 4,000 new jobs coming to your town, it should be safe to assume they aren’t joking—even if the announcement comes on April 1. What kind of psychopathic government official would joke about that kind of economic success?!

Plot twist: Caroline Cayeux (the mayor of Beauvais, France) would. And she did. And people were deeply pissed.

Cayeux took to Twitter first thing Sunday morning to share what people thought was a really incredible piece of news, writing “IKEA will soon be moving to #Beauvais in the NOVAPARC zone! This is excellent news for dynamism and employment in Beauvais! This is the culmination of a long struggle with other cities in the north of France! I have fought and I welcome it!”

IKEA s’installera bientôt à #Beauvais dans la zone Novaparc! C’est une excellente nouvelle pour le dynamisme et l’emploi à Beauvais et dans le Beauvaisis! C’est l’aboutissement d’une longue lutte avec d’autres villes du Nord de la France! Je me suis battue et je m’en félicite! pic.twitter.com/NRSgViPZy1

— Caroline Cayeux (@carolinecayeux) April 1, 2018

People were STOKED at the idea of an IKEA hitting Beauvais. It’s a wonderful store (duh), but the new store would provide the city with roughly 4,000 new jobs. The excitement was short-lived.

Only four hours later, Cayeux tweeted that her announcement was a #PoissonDAvril (a.k.a. an April Fool’s joke), but that she’s still fighting to bring the big box furniture store to the city.

L’annonce de l’installation de IKEA à #Beauvais était un #PoissonDAvril. Mes équipes ont bien contacté l’enseigne mais elle nous a indiqué qu’elle ne s’implante que dans les métropoles. Le développement de la zone d’activités Novaparc va permettre de relancer le dossier! pic.twitter.com/osLOiGzS5F

— Caroline Cayeux (@carolinecayeux) April 1, 2018

According to the BBC, the mayor told French media that she was sorry that “the sense of humour was not shared by everyone,” which could’ve had something to do with the fact that unemployment in Beauvais is quite high.

A bit of context : unemployment is about 20% according to the national statistics office (INSEE), located an hour drive north of Paris and mostly known only because of its airport which is where most of the low cost flights would land, not in the airports near Paris.

— Matthieu Chassain (@MattC_Journo) April 2, 2018

Read the room, Caroline!