Villages under sentence of death : the french fight back | M6 | Zone Interdite

From Brittany to the Landes, from the Charente to the Cantal, men and women have decided to turn their everyday, family lives upside down to rebel against the State’s “steamroller projects”. These pugnacious newcomers to resistance are learning fast. They declare their beliefs loud and clear, they fight tooth and nail for their region, their hospital or their school?but, most importantly, for a certain philosophy of life. Like in Carhaix, a small town of 8,000 in Brittany: The Regional Hospital Agency (ARH) decided to close the local hospital’s maternity and surgical departments on the grounds they were not sufficiently cost-effective. All the nursing staff, the mayor and the townspeople took up arms to force the State into a U-turn. A long struggle with demonstrations, barricades and any other method to hand. After several weeks of conflict, they succeeded in saving their hospital. In the Landes the future A65 highway that will put Bordeaux three hours from Pau instead of the current two, has activated a number of locals… In Brezons, a small village in the depths of the south of Cantal, we discovered Jeannine, the town hall secretary, who, along with the villagers, is fighting against the closure of the school… We were also fascinated by the struggle of the inhabitants of Chabanais, a peaceful village in the Charente Limousine: each day 2,500 trucks drive down its main street, brushing against the houses and the pedestrians on the ever-shrinking sidewalks…