Angers Loire Valley, the first step on a long road to attractivity

About 300 hundred persons, mostly most of them in business connection with Angers Loire métropole gathered on thuesday 19th April at the Le Quai theatre to attend the launch of the new name of that territorial authority : Angers Loire Valley. The purpose of the sponsors of that change is to work on the name of Angers Loire Valley as if it was a brand, designed to be sold in France and abroad. 

If, according to Jean-Claude Antonini, chairman of Angers Loire Valley, the Loire valley is well known all over the world, because of the ranking of that province in Unesco list, Angers is often impossible to localize on a map of France by the foreign people who could wish to come to Angers, for leisure or business purposes. "So, said Mr. Antonini, a new brand could help Angers to attract people because nowadays our province has to compete with others to get wealth and jobs". If the Angevine mildness is probably the most recognized symbol of Angers and its province, "that is not a handicap; on the contrary, it's an advantage because the attraction of a territory depends directly on the quality of life people benefit there".

But that new brand, whose "the anglicized word "valley" is linked to the domination of English language all over the world", pointed out Jean-Claude Antonini, could be demanding. As a new brand, it will be probably necessary to decline it on a wide range of objects and opportunities and, from that point of view the evening lauch was a little bit tasteless. For example, it could have been appropriate to let John Axelrod, conductor of the Oppl speaking in English to express its experience of Angers city. 

But, may be for the first time, a French city recognizes a fact : English language gains the upper hand over French and, instead of fighting stubbornly against that reality. It's a lucid and clever policy.