Outrage in the village!

The calm of the village has been disturbed! A special council meeting has been held, and a unanimous denunciation of the culprits has been published and distributed to all households.

Council message sent to all households

So, what is this all about?

The language is so strong, and at the same time so elaborate and flowery. It’s a lovely example of how a group of ordinary French men and women express themselves formally . . .

We unanimously condemn the facts which occurred in the night of November 10 and denounce them.

We are shocked by such irrational and incomprehensible acts appearing to come from another time from their lowness and their improbability.

We are offended and we are indignant at the attitude of irresponsible people who by their barbaric acts throw opprobrium on our village and its inhabitants and we make a point of stating our sympathy with those who were touched psychologically and materially by these despicable insults. We assure them of our support and our full solidarity. It is in this sense that we will study the possibility of an official assistance in order to accelerate the repairing of the damaged buildings.

During this painful time, we ask all our constituents to show calm and self-control so that serenity returns as fast as possible within our commune

We make a point of recalling that a public inquiry begins on November 17, 2008 in the Mairie concerning the request to exploit a gravel pit by the PATEBEX company. As part of this, any person can familiarise themselves with the file, express themselves on the register of the inquiry or give information to the enquiry chief who will be present.

We hope that democratic expression returns quickly and that our village regains its well being as soon as possible and becomes again, as it deserves, a place where one lives well.

Cordially yours

The unanimous Municipal Council

All this stems from something which did strike us, now we are fully acclimatised to the calm, peaceful nature of the village, as pretty shocking. During last week, when I was walking down to the village square, I was amazed to see that someone had been spraying graffiti.

Now, this sort of graffiti is quite common across rural France as a protest method. We have seen it many times where there is some local campaign against, for example, the closure of a school class, or the establishment of a rubbish dump. We’ve always assumed that it was the action of local people trying to express oppositon and gain support from passing motorists.

In our village, however, it seems that some ‘activist(s)’ have taken it on themselves to spray graffiti messages on other people’s property, protesting against a proposal to develop gravel extraction in part of the valley between here and Limoux. We don’t know much about the proposal, though we do know that it will be out of sight (and hearing) from our house. The area has a long tradition of quarrying (hence the name of the village, which means ‘slashed rock’) and there are two active quarries within the commune. There seems to be very little negative impact on the village – other than the presence of some large lorries carrying stone on the road from the quarry to Limoux. You can sometimes hear quarrying activities across the valley on some walks out of the village, but never from where we live.

We can’t detect any strong local opposition to the gravel proposal, but perhaps we are missing something? At the moment, it seems more likely that the village has suffered another external input from environmental campaigners – like the bizarrely destructive attack on the wind turbines a couple of years ago (see blog). One of the houses that was graffiti’d belongs to Mme Burgat, a really nice old lady who we occasionally have coffee and biscuits with. She seems to know pretty much everything about what’s going on in the village, so we’ll call in to see her and express our sympathy, and see what she can tell us about all of this.

Storm in a teacup? I expect so. It’s funny how something that would be common-place in a city can seem so disturbing when you live somewhere as tranquil as this! I guess the reaction of the Council would seem over-the-top to an outsider. Me, I’m right there with them, showing calm and self-control, and awaiting the return of serenity.