Jean Giono, the man who loved trees
Audio 02:34
The garden and the house of Jean Giono, in Manosque.
RFI / Florent Guignard
By: Florent Guignard
8 min
On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of Jean Giono's death, on October 9, C'est dans ta nature celebrates The Man Who Planted Trees, the most universal work of the French writer.
An environmental manifesto ahead of its time.
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It is the story of a lonely Provencal shepherd who, by planting trees in a stone desert, accomplishes his life's work.
"
He had judged that this country would die for lack of trees
", writes Jean Giono in
The Man Who Planted Trees
, his most popular text, which became, long after his death, an environmental manifesto, a model of sustainable development.
By planting acorns, the fruit of the oak, the shepherd Elzéard Bouffier brings an arid landscape back to life.
The trees grow, form a forest.
It is the cycle of life that begins again.
The animals return, the sources of water spring up, until the return of men and prosperity in formerly abandoned villages.
A premonitory work, at a time when environmental awareness is winning over people's minds, and when ready-to-wear brands, greenwashing enthusiasts, promise to plant a tree for the purchase of a pair of sneakers. Published in 1954,
The Man Who Planted Trees
is a green fable before its time.
A reading however contested by several specialists of the Provençal writer.
“
Everyone is free to consider
The Man Who Planted Trees
as an environmental manifesto.
But this was not at all the intention of Giono
”, thus estimates Jacques Mény, the president of the Association of the friends of Jean Giono.
“Giono” forests all over the world
"
There is a love for trees at Giono
", explains Jacques Mény in the shade of the large khaki which dominates the garden of Giono's house, and which became the living room for the whole family as soon as the beautiful ones returned. days.
The house is unpretentious, on the heights of Manosque, his birthplace, where he died just 50 years ago, in the Alpes de Haute-Provence department, not far from the decor of his short story located “
in this old region of the Alps which enters Provence.
"
Undated portrait of the writer Jean Giono, in his office in Paris.
AFP
Giono says he wrote this short text of about fifteen pages “
with the aim of making people love planting trees (which has always been one of my dearest ideas)
.
»A wish granted many years later.
The Man Who Planted Trees
, translated into fifteen languages, has toured the world, inspiring the planting of “Giono” forests in India, Kenya and Canada.
"
Giono only knew how to plant words
"
“
All of his work carries values which are extremely relevant today
,” analyzes the president of the Association of Friends of Jean Giono.
We say to
ourselves
“
Ah, but Giono already said it!
”.
He had said it on the basis of remarks which started from the sensuality of his relationship to the world.
The character of Elzéard Bouffier, whose real existence the writer has long cast doubt on, was inspired by the writer's own father, who loved to plant acorns in the earth.
“
But he himself did not know how to plant a seed!
», Laughs Jacques Mény, who recalls the sensual relationship that Giono had with trees: the sound of beech leaves in the wind, the bark of the birch caressed ...
“
Elzéard Bouffier who covers this desert plateau with a gigantic forest
,” concludes Jacques Mény, “
it is a figure of Giono novelist who plants his words on the page.
The leaves of a book are like the leaves of a tree.
These trees that we make books.
And of which Giono has made a universal work, which ends thus: "
When I take into account all that was required of constancy in the greatness of soul and determination in generosity to obtain this result, I am taken from an immense respect for this old peasant without culture who knew how to carry out this work worthy of God.
"
"When I buy a book, is it a tree that is cut down?" "
It's true that paper is made from trees.
More exactly, cellulose fibers, which mainly make up plants.
Cellulose is also the most common organic material on Earth.
But rest assured, two-thirds of books printed in France today are on recycled paper.
And the rest comes not from hundred-year-old oaks, but from offcuts, recovered from sawmills or during forest maintenance.
A raw material which is therefore inexhaustible.
Which is no reason to throw paper out the window!
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