"It's funny, the grass is wet in the morning": when the countryside confuses neo-rurals

"It's a hyper Parisian thing: we run, we run, a bit like ducks whose heads have been cut off, we put stress on ourselves in addition to the ambient stress." Most city dwellers dream of it, Julie did it: faced with the feeling of being a "prisoner" in the capital, the documentary filmmaker took her spouse and children under her arm, heading for the Drôme. "I couldn't stand the way we consume, to see plastic everywhere, to eat fruit that has traveled 2,000 kilometres." A feeling that has only worsened during the confinements. "Before, we drove forty-five minutes to find nature. There, every evening, I go out into the courtyard of the farm that we are renovating, and I see the stars."

A "revenge of the countryside"

According to an INSEE study published in May 2020, 450,000 Parisians fled the capital during the first confinement, acting on the idea of ​​a "revenge of the countryside ". “With the Covid crisis, what was left for sale in the Perche was a bit taken over, confirms Jean-Patrice Camus, real estate agent specializing in family management at The Stone Bridge, himself a Percheron. today, there is almost nothing left to sell."

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However, this aspiration does not date from the pandemic. In April 2019, according to an Ifop poll, 57% of urban dwellers wanted to leave the city. Added to the phenomenon of periurbanisation are "migrations for pleasure, in a way hedonistic, of populations that are often relatively privileged, in search of a new quality of life", deciphers the geographer Françoise Cognard. A fantasy inherited from the "post-1968 neorural movement", she underlines. Surrounded by aquaponic cultures and organic market gardeners, Julie says she is "aware of being completely in the cliché of Parisian neobobos", but is "very happy".

A sometimes burdensome loneliness

While many newcomers have found their way there, life outside the cities is sometimes unsettling. Based in Léchiagat, in Finistère, since April 2020, Marion, a 36-year-old playwright, quickly had the feeling of being "all alone in a deserted village". "In Paris, we don't have nature, but we have human nature: you walk 200 meters to buy bread, you meet 200 people, faces, skins, varied clothes." In a year and a half, she managed to set up her theater company, but still feels "a bit of a spectator of local life, of the return of fishermen who are only greeted".

"Many city dwellers arrive with an idealized vision of the countryside, and sometimes the reality is more mixed," explains Françoise Cognard. "It's a mentality, to live in the countryside, confirms Jean-Patrice Camus. You have to like to put on a pair of boots or take secateurs." After a period of scarcity, the property manager expects to see property return to his portfolio soon. "Once, customers said to me: it's funny, the grass is wet in the morning, how come? These people will soon realize that in winter, it's cold, that the heating is expensive, and that a plot of several hectares requires maintenance."

Although a country girl at heart, after years in the Paris region, Alice was surprised by the change of atmosphere on winter evenings. “When I closed the shutters and there was absolutely no light outside, I said to myself: oh yes, we are really all alone… Now, it is more difficult for me to go out at night: when it is 7 p.m. , we already have the impression that it is 11 p.m., "says the 41-year-old ceramist, who has left to settle with her embroiderer spouse in an isolated Norman house. Not enough to frighten the couple, who now live in accordance with their values, between vegetable garden and chicken coop.

Returning to community life

"The problem with the project" is transport, admits Alice. Despite the presence of a village of 1,800 inhabitants two minutes' drive away, almost nothing is accessible on foot. "Without a car, no salvation!", Supports Marion, a journalist who moved to Cap-Ferret, in Gironde, in September 2020, "fully in the post-containment effect". Problem: the mother, "typical city dweller", does not have the permit. "Mobility is the number one concern in this kind of place."

Especially when the slightest appointment with a specialist doctor is obtained for six months from now, an hour's drive away. "You shouldn't be cautious about the kilometers to be covered", breathes Alice, who struggles to find dental or ophthalmological consultations for her children. "In Seine-Saint-Denis, I thought I knew the medical desert, slips Julie. Then I arrived in the Drôme, and I realized what it was really like: nine months of waiting for an appointment you orthodontics!"

So, soon to be back in town? For Alice and Julie, certainly not; but Marion the Ferretcapian without a license is thinking about it. "My children will soon be teenagers, and will need autonomy to find their friends, go to the movies..." The one who spends an average of two days a month in Paris judges that "the best thing is alternating, it's to be able to move". For Marion, the Breton playwright, the decision has already been made: in some time, her family will settle in Lorient, in Morbihan to find community life there, and above all "life on foot: living in a small paradise but having to do 15 kilometers by car for the slightest race", sometimes it is only suitable for a time.