Each year, in Issoudun, in the Centre-Val de Loire region, three families chosen on social criteria receive a small part of the inheritance of a wealthy bourgeois of the city without descendants, in accordance with his last wishes expressed more than ‘a century.
In 1883, in Issoudun, in the Centre-Val-de-Loire region, died François Mousnier, a wealthy bourgeois of the city. Without descendants, the man leaves as an instruction in his will to give a bequest each year to three needy families in the city. The sharing of the bequest between disadvantaged families began five years later, in 1888, and it has now been going on for almost 140 years: this weekend in April 2024, moreover, three new families were chosen.
For some, it was when they got out of bed that they learned the news, in a letter brought by a gendarmerie officer, who announced to this single mother and her two daughters aged seven and five that they were going to receive 11 000 euros. On her doorstep, a small apartment on the edge of town, Lisa can’t believe it: “I’m very surprised, I don’t really realize it, I think…”she smiles, moved.
Help to change the car, essential for a single mother
Barely time to realize, direction the town hall where all the winners will meet. Thanks to this money, Lisa will be able to change her car thanks to this money: “She is very very damaged, she explains. It comes out of the garage and I’ve already had it for 500 euros. A sum that, inevitably, I have not finished paying.”
Between inflation and her part-time job in a tarpaulin factory in Issoudun, it is difficult for this 47-year-old mother to make ends meet. “It’s very complicated to find a job during the day: when you’re all alone, doing the two-eight, it’s not possible with the children.”
“Finding nannies at night, I will spend my salary there. So without a car, unfortunately, I no longer do anything.”
So even if she would have dreamed of having a nice trip, or improving her daily life, in this context, this bequest is a relief for Lisa.
All these families live in Issoudun and are of modest means: each of them had to fill out a file, mentioning their family quotient, their income, whether they are tenants or owners of their accommodation. A jury made up of members of the municipal council, but also of twelve merchants and craftsmen, voted to distribute the money from this legacy which dates back more than a century, explains André Laignel, the PS mayor of the city, that he has been leading for 46 years: “It is a legacy that has resulted in the city owning several hundred hectares of forest and two farms. It is the income from timber sales and tenants that makes it possible to feed the legacy.”
Families have received an average of 11,000 euros on average in recent years. A particularly valuable sum in this period of rising prices. “For a good third of families in Issoudun, adds the mayor, the end of the month is not the 30th or the 31st. Before, it was the 25th. And now, there are some for whom it starts as early as the fifteenth. We see it at the level of the municipal social action center or the solidarity grocery store where, over the last six months, we have had around 25% increase in visits.
In the past, only the fathers of families could be chosen
But if the number of files to receive this legacy filed this year, 53, has exploded compared to the fifteen of last year, it is mainly because the town hall has skipped one of the conditions: “It was previously necessary to choose the father of the family considered as ‘the most upright and the most virtuous’, says André Laignel. The bequest, dating from the time of the patriarchy, meant that only families headed by a man could benefit from it. Three years ago, I submitted a request for revision: it took a little time, but we finally obtained that the will be modified in this way and allow us to ensure that all families can benefit from it.
This year, therefore, only women were chosen: they met just after hearing the good news. “It’s a pride, the mayor told them. Equality should not just be a slogan.” For Déborah, one of the winners, opening this legacy to women is a way of finally catching up with history: “There are a lot of single-parent families and I think it was complicated for these women who couldn’t make requests, knowing that they also have specific needs. The fact of having opened this up to women, that allowed to expand to many other people.”
This mother of two children, including a ten-year-old girl who suffers from autism spectrum disorders, will use this money to set up a specialized micro crèche in Issoudun. And, she says, also put a little butter in the spinach.