The French countryside, largely forgotten by the coronavirus crisis?

INTERVIEW

"We are collectively building a vision of the crisis that is completely distorted," said Salomé Berlioux.

After months of the coronavirus epidemic, the founder and managing director of the Chemins d'avenirs association, also author of

(Ed. De L'Observatoire), points to a risk : that of forgetting the countryside.

At the microphone of Europe 1, she warns: "If we have a vision of the crisis that is distorted, we can think that the responses to this crisis will be biased, too, partly off the mark."

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The territories "which will probably suffer the most" from the crisis

Salomé Berlioux first denounces "our sickly obsession with large metropolises".

"We are talking about Marseille, we are talking about Lyon, we are talking about Paris and that is quite normal: this is where the virus is."

However, "if we take a little step back, it is still easy to understand and think that the so-called 'peripheral' territories of France - rural areas, small towns, residential areas and even some medium-sized towns, which are are already taken full force by the crisis of 2008 -, will be the territories which will probably suffer the most from the economic and social consequences of the crisis, "she points out. 

At the height of the crisis, that is to say during confinement, "when we looked outside the big cities, it was mainly to look at Noirmoutier, Ile de Ré and La Baule, in other words, where CSP ++ city-dwellers had the leisure to go and confine themselves ", supports the general manager of the Chemins d'avenirs association.

"We had a sort of image of Epinal of this 'France of the rovince', as the Parisians say, but which is completely off the mark compared to the reality of the France of the territories."

According to Salomé Berlioux, this is quite different.

"The France of the territories is a France which is structurally confined, in a sense. Let me give you a concrete example: a young person I interviewed, who lives in the Hautes-Vosges and who made this remark to me. that I found really very meaningful. He said to me: 'In fact, urbanites, during confinement, are discovering what we, in the countryside, even in small towns, are experiencing 365 days a year. year, 24 hours a day. They find that they have less access to their doctor than usual? Welcome to our place, we are a medical desert. They find that it is complicated to connect and that it works a little bit less? Welcome home: digital divide. " 

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"Do not fall into miserability"

However, the author says that she wanted to maintain a "balance" by denouncing the difficulties encountered, but with the desire to "enhance these territories and not fall into miserability".

"Because these French people don't want it," she argues.

"They are attached to their territories, they are proud of it and they are committed at the level of their municipality, at the level of their department." 

"I give the floor to healthcare workers in medical deserts, to local elected officials who were on the front line 24 hours a day during the crisis, to teachers who showed incredible ingenuity by leaving homework in a bakery , by going for miles to bring lessons to their students .... It's important to say it, but we cannot rely solely on the idea that rural France is the France of resourcefulness ", believes Salome Berlioux.

"And neither can we dream of revenge for the countryside where, roughly speaking, all Bordelais, Lyonnais and Parisians would go to live naturally after the crisis, in Ain, in Creuse or in Morvan. C it's a little easy to imagine that and I think we're a long way off. "