“Sit there for a day, you’ll see all the mothers passing by. Do you see them take an hour on the bus or tram?” The hypermarket may be poorly lit, damaged and degraded, but those who have frequented it for decades feel abandoned. The closure of Auchan Nord in Clermont-Ferrand, announced Tuesday November 5, marks the end of a story. Their story.
It's a strange feeling, full of ambiguities. The one that binds to an old friend, often annoying and cumbersome, from whom we sometimes wonder why we don't turn away permanently. Then we remember that this would mean breaking with our own history. So we go back, we get angry again, we leave each other and we meet again. We hate each other, but we love each other. Auchan Nord is this friend to whom thousands of residents from the districts of Croix-de-Neyrat to Vergnes, from La Plaine to Cébazat have kept a place, despite everything. The hypermarket may bear the wrinkles of years of neglect and age more quickly due to lack of care, but it retains the charm of these places which maintain memories.
The effect of an “earthquake” for residents
In the heights of Croix-de-Neyrat, the news of the sudden closure of the supermarket, Tuesday, November 5 in the morning, shook Claudette, on the first floor of a building in the neighborhood. She didn't believe it. “It’s a great catastrophe, a chasm opens before us, really for the little people here, it’s an earthquake. »
At 80 years old, she had time to become attached to this neighbor from a few hundred meters away whom she saw grow up, first under his first identity, Mammoth. “It was smaller, there were fewer things, it was a different time,” she reflects. Little by little, it grew, it became our benchmark. Really, it's hard. » We thought we saw tears.
The Auchan group announces the closure of a hypermarket and a supermarket in Auvergne
With its two tram stops, Croix-de-Neyrat and Hauts-de-Chanturgues, the hypermarket is located in the center with its village square feel, surrounded by the northern districts of Clermont-Ferrand and their 8,300 inhabitants, to which are added some of the 8,900 residents of Cébazat. The remoteness of this part of the city reinforces the population's attachment to this emblem that Auchan Nord has become.
A bad joke that doesn't work
At the foot of a tower, a group of young people kill time with a view of this enclosure left in its original state in the style of the last century. The bad joke of the closure did not amuse them. “Yeah, that’s it, impossible,” they whisper. Then they realize. “It means everything to us. Since we were little, our daronnes (mothers) have been going there on foot to do their shopping. This store helps people, it is essential. Auchan is our life. »
Receive our eco newsletter by email and find the latest news from economic players in your region.
Closure of Auchan Nord in Clermont-Ferrand: “all in trouble”, the merchants of the shopping mall in the dark
They are in their twenties, the center of their world is in “Croine”, the center of their city is here. Jaude can fly away, their compass only points north. “Since we were little, my mother has sent us to Auchan,” explains one of them. Sit there for a day, you'll see all the mothers passing by. Do you see them taking an hour on the bus or tram? Even the elderly send us shopping. »
The heart of a large village of nearly 20,000 inhabitants
Further down, the tram stop is teeming with people, it's not midday. The elders, the younger ones, mothers and sons come and go towards the entrance of the hypermarket. “It’s the heart of the Auchan district, it’s thanks to it that there is interaction,” swears the small group, “it brings people in.” We were born here and grew up in Auchan. The first Pokémon cards, the first bullshit, it's over there. Already we have nothing left, it's really a feeling of abandonment, a stab in the back. We're at the bottom of the ladder and we're toasting. It's hot. »
In the morning, Samir El Bakkali saw defeated faces among the members of the Mosaïc association which works to live together. “People only talk about that,” laments the former president. Everyone has a loved one who works or has worked there. Say what you want, it's the only place they met. Here, all roads lead to Auchan, without cars. »
The feeling of double punishment
The brutality of the closure does not pass into Claudette's apartment. The octogenarian thinks of his friends, of the neighbors. To her too. “The neighborhood is dying, it weighs heavily on my heart,” she ruminates. Who will still go north of Clermont-Ferrand if this last place of life dies? The risk of accentuating isolation, already heavy in the northern districts, is real. A double punishment for the residents. This Tuesday, it was huge.
Malik Kebour
