The Economist - USA (2019-11-23)

50 Europe The EconomistNovember 23rd 2019

2

I

t ismid-morning, butthecornflower-

blueshuttersatwhatwasoncea cheery

café are closed and rusting. Near the

church,thegrocer’sisboardeduptoo,its

paintworkpeeling inthecolddamp air.

Eventheboulangerie, whichoncesoldthe

morningbaguettetothisvillageofsome

1,100people,hasgone.Nestlingamidforest

andcerealfieldsinnorthernFrance,Saint-

inesencapsulatesmanyofthedifficulties

of rural decline—but also a distinctly

Frenchefforttofightit.

Offthehighstreet,pasttheabandoned

formerpostoffice,liestheentrancetothe

townhall.Tuckedinside,freshlybakedba-

guettesarelinedupina woodenrackbe-

hinda counterthatalsoservesasa rural

postoffice.Customerscanpickupa loaf,

senda parcel,evenregistera newbaby,all

inthesamespot.Jean-PierreDesmoulins,

the73-year-oldmayor,hasturnedbread

intoapublicservice,andthelittletown

hallintoa socialhub.“Itcreatesa meeting

place,apointofsocialcontact,”hesays.

“Sometimes,peoplespend half anhour

herejustchatting.”

Saintines belongs to what might be

calledin-betweenFrance:neitherremote

enoughforvillagelifetorevolvearound

farmingseasons,norcloseenoughtobig

citiesto be amere dormitory.Over the

years,thevillagehaslostjobsandshops

alike.Workatthelocalmatchboxfactory

hasallbutdisappeared,and withitthe

once-vibrant local cafés. Cars, like ba-

guettes,areessentialtodailylife.Nearly

90%ofvillageresidentsdrivetowork.

Thevillagefitsa countrywidetrend.Be-

tween 2003 and 2014 Francelost7,000ca-

fés,a dropof17%.Overthepastsixyears

alone,thenumberofboulangeriesinFrance

hasshrunkby18%,to30,000.Theupshotis

a lossofdailysocialcontact,livesspentin

thecaranda newformofsolitude.Thisis

thepotentmixthathelpedtomobilisethe

gilets jaunes (yellow jackets) protesters,

whosetupcampsonthecountry’sroad

junctionsandroundaboutsa yearago,ini-

tiallytoprotestabouta greentaxonmotor

fuel.Awayfromtheviolenceseeninthe

cities,manyoftheseplacesrecreateda fes-

tive,communalspiritthathasbeenlostin

car-dependent semi-rural areas. Today

therearemoreroundaboutsinFrancethan

therearecafésorboulangeries.

Yetforallthedesolation,Saintinesalso

dispelsthemythofFranceasmerelya cen-

tralisedcountryrunfromParis. Likeal-

mosteveryvillageacrossthecountry,it

boastsitsowntownhall,displayingthena-

tionalflag.Francehas35,000directlyelect-

ed mayors—three times more than in

neighbouringGermany.Halfofthemrun

villageswithfewerthan 500 people.And

pollsconsistentlyshowthatFrenchmay-

ors arethe most trusted of all France’s

electedleaders.

In Saintines, the non-partisan Mr Des-

moulins has been mayor for fully 18 years.

He runs three primary and two nursery

classes in the village, to try to keep young

families from moving away. The local pop-

ulation is growing. Standing in his town-

hall bread shop on a weekday morning, the

mayor greets clients by name. “A meal

without a baguette,” he comments, “just

isn’t a meal.”

Not every mayor has an entrepreneurial

streak like Mr Desmoulins. Many are livid

at the government’s decision to abolish a

residential tax that used to provide a big

chunk of their revenues, even though the

government says it will compensate them

directly. At the mayors’ annual congress in

Paris this week, President Emmanuel Mac-

ron promised to work with them, pointing

to efforts such as the roll-out of fibre-optic

networks and backing for a non-profit pro-

ject to open 1,000 cafés in small villages.

The stakes are not purely social. A study in

2016 by Jérôme Fourquet, a polling analyst,

showed that the absence of a post office,

grocer or café in a village, along with dis-

tance from a railway station, correlated

with an increase in the vote for Marine Le

Pen’s populist National Front (now the Na-

tional Rally).

Indeed Ms Le Pen came top in voting at

European elections this year in Saintines.

Mr Desmoulins, who plans to run yet again

at municipal elections due next year, is

pushing back. He has already put in his ap-

plication to open a café under the new

scheme. Nursery pupils in the village now

get school lunches. Behind the bread coun-

ter, Brigitte Sraczyk, a town-hall employee

who used to clean classrooms, sells about

50 baguettes a day and enjoys the social

contact as much as her clients seem to.

“Oh, I don’t go to shops with unmanned

checkout tills,” says a pensioner, stepping

in from the rain for a baguette and a natter.

“A little ‘Bonjour Monsieur, Bonjour Ma-

dame’ every day never killed anybody.” 7

SAINTINES

Aseptuagenarianmayortacklessocialdeclineina cornerofruralFrance

France

Theirdailybread

Welcome to Le Pen country

duce greenhouse-gas emissions. John

Springford of the Centre for European Re-

form, a think-tank, notes that farming

emissions have been creeping up since

2012, partly because of increases in live-

stock. But the commission’s cuts seem

concentrated, bafflingly, on the part of the

agricultural budget that could be used to do

so, while sparing farm subsidies.

In early November an investigation by

the New York Timesrevealed that politi-

cians in Hungary and other central Euro-

pean countries were rigging land sales to

capture subsidies or directing eucash to

their chums. That raises the question of

whether the eushould monitor its funds

more closely. Payments also tend to be

linked to a farm’s acreage, meaning that

large landowners get the biggest handouts.

The commission wants to cap the size of

payments, but former communist coun-

tries, where farms tend to be large, oppose

that. European taxpayers, it seems, will

keep getting milked. 7