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Video length: 7 min
Dordogne: citizen immersions to better prepare for settling in a rural environment
To bring young people to the Dordogne, a resident offers to try life in a small town by organizing stays with locals. His project, “My new neighbors”, has been a great success. – (France 2)
To bring young people to the Dordogne, a resident offers to try life in a small town by organizing stays with locals. His project, “My new neighbors”, has been a great success.
Stéphane Guegan and Magali have lived in Bordeaux (Gironde) for 15 years, and dream of a life in the countryside. They go to Saint-Aulaye, in Dordogne, where they will test their project over a weekend. Residents of the town volunteered to introduce the village to city dwellers tempted by the countryside, but still hesitant. “80% of French people say that they want to settle in a rural area, but they are not taking the plunge. The desire is to support a settlement in a rural area, to promote rural communities, and to say that ‘I love to live”explains Sophie Le Gal, founder of the system “My new neighbors”.
Everyone has their own recipe
Still in Dordogne, the small village of Saint-Pierre-de-Frugie has gained around a hundred inhabitants. “The new mayor has focused on the ecological transition and created gardens, where everyone can come and harvest vegetables. He helped producers to open a store, an osteopath even opened an office. (…) The school has reopened and the village comes back to life”, reports journalist Valérie Heurtel, on the set of 13 Heures. In Voivres, in the Vosges, the mayor bought empty houses and created integration jobs to renovate them. His town gained 150 inhabitants.
