The LavALgérie association was created in November 2023, in Laval (Mayenne). The group wants to bring together all Laval residents with a link to Algeria, while a twinning with Souk-Ahras is being prepared.
Since the first announcements of the project, “around a hundred people expressed their interest to us”confided Georges Poirier, city deputy, in charge of daily and civic life.
In Laval, the bar-tabac-restaurant, Le Méridional, cultivates living together. “The North Africans met here. It felt good to be at home again. »
Repatriated in 1962
If North Africans gather there, it is because a former resident of Oran, in Algeria, remained at its head from 1975 to 1994. Adelaide Galvan is originally from Almeria in Spain.
In the 1950s, she and her parents moved to the other side of the Mediterranean to “escape poverty”, explains his grandson Mickaël Rivet, the current manager. There she met her husband, Antoine. “They were repatriated to France near Andouillé in 1962”, he reveals. The couple worked for a time at the LMT factory (telephone equipment) before taking over the restaurant.
Raï jukebox
“There was already a North African clientele but the fact that my grandmother, pied noire, took it over played a role.indicates the current manager. She found people she knew from Oran, like the grocer next to where she worked. Or a television repairman. Together, they recalled memories with tears in their eyes. The change in life must have been brutal. »
A jukebox playing raï 45s and Mickaël’s great-grandmother’s couscous also adorn this North African scene.
Since then, the bar has remained in the family, passing into the hands of Mickaël Rivet’s uncle before he took it over with his wife, Sandrine Vannier, in 2002. “I tried to keep this culture of living together in the team”explains the boss.
A fresco painted in 2023 also pays tribute to Adelaide and Antoine. But like Mickaël, whose father is from Bréal-sous-Vitré, the best-rated restaurant in Laval on the TripAdvisor platform has become a crossroads. Welcoming Mayennais from all walks of life. The name still bears witness to the southern history of the place.
