Charles Guyard 8:22 a.m., January 23, 2023
Every day, Europe 1 looks at an idea or a problem in your daily life.
This Monday, our team went to Saint-Quay-Perros, in Brittany, to meet these seniors who eat in school canteens.
An initiative of the town hall, which aims to bring together young and old generations.
Reportage.
In France, there are nearly a million seniors who suffer from loneliness on a daily basis - 900,000 people exactly, according to health insurance.
In the Côtes-d'Armor, a town hall thinks it has found a solution to break this unbearable routine.
The idea?
Bring together seniors and schoolchildren around a meal in the canteen.
In Saint-Quay Perros, the elderly can have lunch four times a week at the school canteen.
"The grandfathers and grandmothers no longer met the children and vice versa", justifies Olivier Houzet, the mayor of Saint-Quai-Perros.
To act in the face of the generation gap, he resorted to a symbolic place: the school canteen.
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Here, the people seated are between 2 and 90 years old.
Every noon, 80 schoolchildren from the town have lunch with the elderly.
An initiative appreciated, even if it is necessary to respect a certain discipline.
"It's nice, it changes," rejoices a schoolgirl.
"It's a bit like our grandparents," said another.
"You shouldn't shout, you shouldn't run around. You have to be wise so that the elderly feel good."
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And for that, we can count on Laurent: the chef does not hesitate to ask for silence.
Esther, 69, is one of the twenty or so regulars at these meals, which cost just €6.50.
"No electricity, no gas. I save money by coming to eat here two or three times a week. I like to see something else, I am always between these four walls."
The town hall is now considering a system of shuttles to pick up other elderly people from their homes to take them to the canteen.