“The yellow vest has replaced the overalls, the driver has taken the place of the worker“. In his latest work the France before our eyes, Jérôme Fourquet explains how our country switched in the mid-1980s, from a production company to a consumer society. “During this period that has been called the great metamorphosis, motor activities such as agriculture but also and above all industry have given way to an economy which revolves essentially around consumption, tourism, leisure and well-being.“.
The emblems of this transformation are obviously these immense commercial zones which have grown on the outskirts of cities and have become the hotspots of economic activity to the detriment of the city center. La Sarthe is no exception to the rule. ” We can take the case of the Auchan activity zone at the northern exit of Le Mans. The hypermarket was opened in 1982. In 1994, it is the opening of a McDonald’s in this area. And then, in 1998, the opening of the famous multiplex which will give new impetus and a new dynamic to this activity zone which, today, extends the limit of the urbanization of Le Mans to Saint-Saturnin, that is to say that there are several reconfigured kilometers is transformed“.
The France of forklift drivers; from Amazon and Lidl
To draw up their atlas of this France that consumes, Jérôme Fourquet and Jean Laurent Cassely (the other author of the book) have freed themselves from traditional markers. They took as a standard value the number of clicks on Wikipedia pages, the geography of Amazon warehouses, where the success of hard discount products that have invaded our lives. With even low cost professions. ” New jobs have been created in personal services, employees in EPADs, home helpers, maintenance workers, security guards “And then of course the jobs generated by the giants of the sale online and supermarkets “. Forklift drivers, storekeepers who work in Amazon warehouses or those in hypermarkets. Truck drivers who deliver goods in record time. These are the sectors that recruit the most.
“In all of these trades, pay levels are relatively low. There is little salary progression“. Hence the spectacular development of hard-discount stores.” Because this population, like the rest of the country, aspires to consume since the fact of frequenting such and such a store or being able to buy products from such and such a brand for your children means that you belong to this middle class.“. A whole part of the population who works in these new professions can no longer afford these branded products or at least not at the prices of hypermarkets.”Hence the development of what we have called a secondary market with the food and non-food hard discount as flagship, but also in the automotive sector.This is demonstrated by the tremendous success of a range such as the Dacia brand, Jérôme Fourquet notes.
The majority plaza
Another ideal of consumption: the individual house with garden. Here again, Jérôme Fourquet is thinking outside the box by relying on the success of Stéphane Plaza’s programs. ” It’s a wink, a bit humorous, to the most famous real estate agent in France. But kidding aside, behind it all, there is an imaginary that we call _the majority Plaza model_. That of the detached house with garden“. There, where we have family barbecues notes the Sarthe political scientist who for example predicts the explosion in sales of individual barbecues even those over 400 euros. The explosion also in the number of swimming pools too”including in the Sarthe. And it is this model, for example, that the Minister of Housing, Mrs Wargon, recently criticized, saying that it is an ecological and social impasse. Except that today, more than three quarters of the French aspire to this detached house with garden“.
France triple A against France backstage
There is also a new hierarchy of territories that emerges according to what Jérôme Fourquet calls the desirability of municipalities. With two types from France. France triple AAA, the one that has the coast and France backstage, that behind the scenes, which remains in the shadows.
To draw this new hierarchy, the Sarthe political scientist used an unconventional but fairly effective marker. “All the municipalities have a Wikipedia page and we looked at the ones that were clicked the most, those that were the most desired to bring out the triple A, the France of desire, the Instagramable France, the one in which you want to live and the one in which we plan to go to spend a weekend or a vacation. It is the large metropolises, the coasts, the rural areas which are located at a reasonable distance from a large metropolis which provide a pleasant living environment. I am thinking, in the north of the Sarthe, for example, in Perche“. And then on the other side, there is this abandoned France, that of the shadows, which remains behind the scenes.” That of deprived suburbs like Allonnes in the Sarthe. France of industrial basins in crisis. France is a fairly remote and neglected territory where the rural exodus has done a lot of damage. As there was a class struggle, today there are placesAs evidenced by the real estate prices which are not at all the same depending on the areas in which you are going to reside.
Listen to Jérôme Fourquet’s interview here.
France before our eyes is published by Editions du Seuil.