The Patrouille de France, which turns 70 next year, is based and trains in Salon-de-Provence in the Bouches-du-Rhône.
They train between 12:30 p.m. and 1:30 p.m., at lunch and siesta time, a fairly widespread practice in Provence.
If the Salonnais can be happy to see their city identified with the Patrouille de France, they would also like to be able to have calm between noon and two.
" Where do you come from ?
“, is one invariably questioned on the occasion of a new meeting.
To that, I answer “from Salon-de-Provence”, words to which my interlocutor generally opposes a widening of the eyes (of the kind “never heard of”), as long as the exchange is located more than 100 km from Marseille.
“But yes, you know, the city of the Patrouille de France (PAF), Nostradamus, the A7… all that stuff.
– Ah, yes, the Patrouille de France, of course.
It must be so cool to see them all the time?
»
How to say.
Not really.
Or rather not all the time.
In fact, it's complicated.
If it is very pleasant to attend a high-precision air show with planes flying at low altitude and tracing evocative figures in the azure sky using smoke bombs in the colors of the French flag, such as a heart or the symbol of Sidaction, we get tired of it quickly.
Training every day of the week
The pilots of the PAF train every day of the week from October to May, before starting the summer their performances in the four corners of France, even the world, and then lifting their feet a little on the sky. salonnais.
A daily show that delights tourists and his office, which sells various goodies, keychains, books and other pens bearing his image.
Less that of the followers, many in Provence, of the pénéquet, this short digestive siesta of the beginning of the afternoon.
It must be said, the training of these elite army pilots takes place in the Provençal sky right on time, between 12:30 p.m. and 1:30 p.m.
"This is the least disturbing slot for the other activities of the air base", says one on the communication side.
Still, the residents of the base and the areas overflown would like to have lunch in peace.
Beyond the Alpha jets of the PAF, the air base of Salon-de-Provence also hosts a few fighter planes which regularly break the sound barrier.
“I remember working in a workshop located near the base, and having my rib cage vibrate as they passed while I had the noise-canceling helmet on,” says Siméon, a young carpenter.
"And then, how can I put it, it's painful for the Pénéquet which is still sacred in Provence", continues the young man who confesses to having called the base a few times during confinement to ask them to stop flying at these hours. the.
Soon seventy years of high aerobatics
In the same order, I who spent my college at Joseph-d'Arbaud, an establishment attached to the base, I have the memory of courses brutally interrupted by the deafening noise of planes going so far as to make the windows vibrate.
But everything, far from it, was not negative for a schoolboy in all this airy agitation peculiar to Salon.
The student pilots of the base practice aerobatics on small devices, which, not very noisy, and with their looping and their stake, offer beautiful distractions from the window of a classroom.
Also, the activity of the air base feeds the local economic fabric, and some, although annoyed by the noise pollution, can benefit from it.
“The Patrouille de France, apart from making noise, has the advantage of taking a few barrels from us,” comments Julien from the Sapristi brewery, whose clothing workshop and adjoining bar are located at the exit from the military zone.
An example that concludes and illustrates in many ways the love-hate relationship of the inhabitants with the Patrouille de France, which will celebrate its 70th anniversary next year.
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