INTERVIEW
A ministerial committee on rurality, composed of the Prime Minister and six of his ministers such as Christophe Castaner or Elisabeth Borne, went to Épinal Thursday morning to highlight the action of the government in rural areas. Jean-Marc Borello, president of the SOS group and co-founder of the Marche movement, presents the "1,000 cafes" initiative at the microphone of Europe 1, aimed at opening cafes in villages where all shops have closed.
>> Watch Matthieu Belliard's morning show in replay and in podcast here
"Multiservice places"
The operation aims to open cafes in villages to help the resumption of social and economic activities. The goal: to provide a response to desertification in rural areas. One in three French people lives in a municipality with fewer than 3,500 inhabitants, and half of these municipalities have no businesses. For Jean-Marc Borello, coffee is a vector of social ties, and more. "It is in particular a place where we meet, but it is also a place which can bring various services", explains the close of the President. "Some cafes will give access to a post office, press devices, digital equipment for those who do not have internet," says Jean-Marc Borello. "Multiservice places, co-constructed differently with the inhabitants of the village", he continues.
25 cafes about to open
Thursday the ministerial committee visits one of the first cafes in the program, which opens in the Vosges.
700 municipalities are said to have applied to participate in the program. 1,800 people have expressed their desire to become a coffee manager. 25 cafes are being opened, and Jean-Marc Borello ensures that a hundred will open before the end of the year, two hundred next year, "four hundred the following year, and we will continue the operation ", said the president of the SOS group at the microphone of Europe 1.
Of the 1,800 candidates for the management of cafes, Jean-Marc Borello says that the profiles are very varied: inhabitants of the villages, but also people who have left their homeland, and who "want to find their region and a fashion of life different from cities ".
"An element of the device"
Opening a café in the villages alone cannot solve the problems of desertification in rural areas. "This is one of the measures included in the plan that the government must announce on Thursday," explains Jean-Marc Morello. "There is also the need to revitalize these territories with the presence of public service, the fight against medical desertification", he continues. "It is only one element of the system to which the government has committed".
"The place is for innovation, for imagination"
"But the idea is to make cafes a point of departure, of meeting, to develop common projects. We can also imagine devices that allow the elderly to find services in their village and stay longer at home. them ", suggests Jean-Marc Borello, who specifies that all the café managers will be employed by the SOS group, which he directs.
Finally, he spoke on the issue of transport in rural areas. Mobility is indeed a major subject in the issue of isolation. "The idea is to invent solutions at the local level", explains the politician. "In one of these villages, the mayor made an electric vehicle available to all the inhabitants of the village. Sharing a vehicle to regain mobility. The place is for innovation and imagination, this will allow to live better in these villages and therefore to restart the activity, "concludes Jean-Marc Borello.