Is France the only country in Europe to have such a catastrophic vision of mutations? Or is it a posture of its nationals to be able to continue to grumble in all circumstances? In other words, the “Refractory Gaul», to use one of the many Macronian expressions to have turned against their author, is it more than ever the unsurpassable horizon of France?
This is the question I ask myself as, shortly after Vendôme, I leave Eure-et-Loir by the D957 for Loir-et-Cher, and soon Beauce becomes Sologne. We must follow: all the departments of the region bear the name of two rivers at the same time, and in Blois, where I will soon arrive, the Loire also flows in majesty. It is for this reason that the kings of the Renaissance had so many admirable castles built in the surrounding area. Whoever sits above the city will have to wait a bit, because what interests us today is the fate of the legendary Poulain chocolate factory, present here since 1848, and whose closure has just been announced. With it disappear 109 positions and dozens of indirect jobs, subcontractors and temporary workers. A social breakdown. In the sixties, “one in three Blois residents was a Poulain”I am told straight away.
Foal sets sail
The owner of the brand is called Eurazeo, a billionaire French investment fund, as specialist as you and me in chocolate, since it also owns Europcar, Moncler and Desigual, to name just a few names. It is a “major player in asset management on the markets”, as it describes itself on its site, and it decided that it would be cheaper to leave Blois to transform cocoa into slabs elsewhere in the European Union.
(When the American group Mondelez relocated the manufacturing of Toblerone from Switzerland to Slovakia a year ago, no one lifted a finger – there were no refractory Swiss people. They were just asked to replace the Matterhorn on the packaging by a less resembling triangular mountain.)
“It’s shameful, we are breaking the production tool for the sole satisfaction of shareholder profits. The disappearance of Poulain is the symbol of Macron’s failure and the continued deindustrialization of the country., explains Tony Anjoran, CGT delegate, who is waiting in front of the prefecture for the inter-union procession to kick off. We therefore do not ask him what he thinks of this sentence pronounced by the President of the Republic when dissolving the National Assembly:
“To be French is to choose history rather than endure it.”
Infiltration nationale
The grandiloquence can remain in Paris. Here the problems are more prosaic: “Saving factories and jobs, we don’t do politics,” said a CFDT activist. But we still do a little. Thus, a scuffle broke out when a small group of local elected officials from the National Rally, not invited, wanted to participate. Among them, Michel Chassier, worried about Chocolats Poulain, and who considers his presence legitimate since “the workers vote for us by 50%”.
Where we are not very happy to see the RN arrive.
Where Michel Chassier, RN regional councilor for Centre-Val de Loire, claims to be workers.
It’s not easy to chase Chassier: he will follow the procession, at a respectable distance despite the vituperations of motivated activists (“No fascists in our neighborhoods! No neighborhood for fascists!”). Let our readers be reassured here, at no time will his mustache be in danger.
The truth about the climate
In the meantime, a lively discussion is taking place a little apart on the sidewalk. On one side the RN candidate in the constituency, Marine Bardet, real estate agent and regional advisor, who has just been expelled from the demonstration and who does not have the build of Michel Chassier to persevere. On the other, a local elected official with socialist ties, Jean-Marc Moretti, mayor of the neighboring village of Villerbon.
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Elle: “You see, there is no more democracy in France, left-wing extremists will bring us chaos and insecurity.”
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His: “No matter what, be reasonable, you are the ones who carry the division. The solutions you propose will fracture society.”
In his village, explains Jean-Marc Moretti, the climate is also deteriorating. “Nothing to do with the delusions of the RN on immigration. In fact, diversity has been there for a long time, and that’s a good thing. The truth is that people can’t stand each other anymore. One in two calls I receive concerns a neighborhood problem. No one has any tolerance for anything anymore.”
The minister opens his table
Two hours later, on the banks of the Loire, terrace of a brasserie. The candidate of the presidential majority (Modem) in the 1st constituency of Loir-et-Cher receives whoever wants to come, in front of a platter of cheeses and raw ham. If the expression “à la bonne franquette” was ever deserved, it is on this occasion. Because the table is open, and we find a nice group of rather healthy French people there, a little worried about the recent turn of events but talkative.
Marc Fesneau has been Minister of Agriculture for two years, he has already cashed in well since there were tractors in Paris in January, and he received eggs at the Agricultural Show in March. Every minister in office must undergo this baptism of fire in the sector “readily rowdy”, in the words of the person concerned. He concedes that the government, of which he is one of the most discreet and reserved members, “was able to give the impression of a certain collective arrogance, of being very sure of oneself, self-centered on Paris, not listening to the territories. That’s not my opinion, but whatever, if that’s the feeling, we need to pay attention to it.”
A fan of crossbow hunting in the Chambord forest, Marc Fesneau is worried about seeing the RN poaching an entire middle-class electorate who formerly voted to the right in the region. Even in the peaceful and bourgeois Loir-et-Cher, the RN is at 32%. “They are addressing the coalition of the discontented, capitalizing fully on the fact of never having governed. They can promise anything, because we’ve never tried them.”
Will parade at his table:
- The history teacher
Dominique Mauclair teaches in a local high school. He came to listen to the minister-candidate “for the sake of information” but will not vote for him, rather for the New Popular Front, the united left which would be more so without the Mélenchonian rantings. Above all, he has a warning in the form of a history textbook: “fascist parties have always simulated social fiber”.
- The Armenian trader
Arriving in France ten years ago because persecuted by the Azeris in her village near Nagorno-Karabakh, this Armenian trader does not give her name, and does not say who she is going to vote for. But she is very sensitive to the arguments of one of the opposing blocs. “France is the world champion of unconditional social aidshe said in perfect French. Rather, it should set conditions: either you integrate or you get out. I’m not going to name them, but there are still communities who come here only to benefit and who don’t even take the trouble to try to become French.
The councilor introduces himself as follows: “I am eco-Rocardian but pro-nuclear, former engineer at the EDF power plant in Saint-Laurent-Nouan, right next door. Worried because we have let communitarianism slip away in the country and nothing makes society anymore, nothing makes republic anymore.” He says that the French must relearn how to speak to each other calmly, that the legislative elections portend a lot of chaos while the country does not need to quarrel even more.
Minister Fesneau agrees. “There are now only two antagonistic blocs, everywhere, all the time. The rich against the poor, the rural against the urban, religions against each other, bosses against employees.. His solution? Vote, again and again, for this presidential majority that no one can see in painting anymore, on the grounds that it remains this “responsible center, the only one capable of fighting against the two extremes”.
A program? Not really, just a hope, tenuous, as frail as these branches carried by the Loire, still swollen with the anger of the heavens.
