Mad Mayors, Crazy Corsicans

I promised news on our Corsican house build project; well we're back from our annual Corsican excursion with the latest developments hot off the press. It's a nightmare project that is becoming increasingly rocambolesque. If I told you that in France you can have your planning permission taken away from you even when the house is almost completed, that someone can declare the house 1m50 too high, have all works stopped and then two years down the line admit that they were wrong (we are in fact 60cm higher than the plan) - would you believe me?
We're in a situation where the planning authority (the DDE) very kindly decided to rectify the height discrepancy with a new planning permission, allowing us to continue the build, only to realise 2 months later that the Mayor should have been the signatory and not the DDE. The planning permission is swiftly removed once again. No problem you're thinking, just get the Mayor to sign it.
If only Corsican life could be that easy! The Mayor will not sign the planning permission.
Here are some of the reasons:
1. He doesn't like the modern design of our house and there's alot of wealthy, influential voters in the area who don't like it either
2. He wants us to saw off the roof and lower the entire house by 60cm! - he refuses to believe our engineeering expert who repeatedly tells him this is structurally impossible without demolishing the lot and starting again.
3. He has now introduced a new building law for the area (called a PLU) which doesn't allow buildings higher than 6m (ours is 7m20!)
So we're now caught up in a catch 22 situation. Where do we go from here?
Well we've had to resort to the courts. We did try to placate the mayor, build relations and rationally plead our case during our summer holiday. Not easy when faced with an explosive character who's ego is immense, who's temper is even bigger and who can scream, shout and bully as well, if not better than my 9 year old son. So it's the expensive, time consuming legal route UNLESS Stephane's Dad can work his Corsican charm on the head of the DDE or our architect's ex-wife can win her case to bring about the fall of the PLU! I did say it was rocambolesque! But I'll save all of that for another time.....