INTERVIEW
In France there are trees older than all historical monuments. However, they do not benefit from legal protection and do not have the possibility of being patrimonial. On Europe 1, Alain Baraton, head gardener of the Trianon national estate and the great park of Versailles, pleads on Monday so that multicentennial trees can be protected in the same way as stone monuments.
"Our old trees are not protected"
"In France, trees are not protected by law. A thousand-year-old tree is not protected by law." A state of affairs which revolts Alain Baraton since "that means that if a mayor decides to cut him off, he has every right to do so. It is scandalous."
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For the chief gardener of Versailles, this can cause drama: "In France, we continue to mistreat them, to cut them for nonsense." And when voices, like his, ask to protect them, he is answered "systematically that there are other priorities, that the tree is a living being and that as such it is called to die and that 'it is difficult to classify. Our old trees are not protected and I regret that. "
Important trees in history
However, "the oldest trees are over 9,000 years old," he explains. As such, Alain Baraton considers that they deserve "to be protected in the same way as the pyramids". The oldest tree in France, an olive tree, is found in Roquebrune-Cap-Martin: it is 2,000 years old. In Paris alone, Square Viviani is home to the capital's oldest tree, an acacia, facing Notre-Dame de Paris. "It was planted by Jean Robin, gardener of Henri IV, it is the dean of Paris" and it is 400 years old. "We must protect them," insists the head gardener of the Trianon estate.
Especially since some trees have a history, linked to the great History. This is the case of the Lebanese cedar from the Jardin des Plantes, introduced by the botanist Bernard de Jussieu, who brought the species to France and in particular this "dean of the cedars". The chestnut tree in Anne-Frank Square "was born from the chestnut tree that the little one saw from her windows in the house in Amsterdam". Thus concludes Alain Baraton, "when we are lucky, as in Paris, to have old trees that are highlighted, we must continue to hope that it lasts a long time".