New in the news

"La Tribune d'Angers" is a new weekly available in that city since october 14th. Published every thursday, it will cover local issues like polical life, economy, environment, society and leisures. The newspaper may be found in almost 160 places of Angers, Beaucouzé, Les ponts de Cé and Saint-Barthélémy d'Anjou, stores, shopping malls, public places and the Saint-Laud railway station. And it's free.

This weekly newspaper was already published in two others towns of the Pays de la Loire province : Orléans and Tours. The first issue, printed at 20 000 copies, contains news about Angers itself and cities around and has its website.

This new title is added to those of the Sipa-Ouest France Groupe, the Ouest-France and Le Courrier de l'Ouest. Angers is on the web with Angers maville, Angers Mag Info and Angers Ville Actu. Recently a web tv channel appeared also in the city : Angers tv.

English is on the front page of La Tribune d'Angers because at the top and the bottom of the cover ads appear in that language : one talking about a new car described as "trendline" and the other is a well-established angers irish pub. Cheers!

Demonstrations give the Angers medias an opportunity to "communicate"

The difference between "information" and "communication" is sometimes not difficult to spot. The way the Angers newspapers deal with the issue of the french state plan of raising the retirement age is an example of the mix of these two styles which may induce the opinion of the public.

Most of the present reports about the demonstrations give the floor to local opponents to the reform, scarcely to the opponents to the demonstrations. But the Angers editors seem often themselves fierce opponents to the reform and, more or less consciously, attempt to criticize the project (The treatment of information, in France, regularly, mix the facts and the analysis of these facts by the editors what constitutes a difference with England or US edition). In the past, their professionnal trade-union was already in favor of the reduction of work time from 39 to 35 hours per week.

But for the french press, whose economic health is not brilliant nowadays, the public demonstrations are a way to increase the sales. An example of the common interest trade-unions and newspapers share was given last weekend in the columns of one of them which pictured in its issue of october 17th the Angers demonstrators behind a ad-panel of its attractive title about the theme. Information and communication are interlinked and may sometimes distort the opinion.

A new hyphen over the Maine

Opened on october 15th to the pedestrians and the bikes, the Confluences bridge will let the Angers trolley cross the Maine river on the end of june 2011. This work [described in this blog in a former comment) hosted two demonstrations during the first hours of its public use : an official inauguration implemented by Angers city and a protest of inhabitants against the national reform of the pensions system.

By contrast with other parts of the trolley line, the bridge could have welcome safely trolleys, bikes and pedestrians if each of them would have had its own way. But the most noticeable element is the arch placed on the left part (and not in the middle) of the bridge on a slight descent toward the right bank.

Cleared out of scaffoldings, lifting equipments, cranes and warehouse, the bridge thrusts with grace and lightness over the river like a hyphen between to periods of the city : the past with the first hospital on the right bank, the future with the movies complex on the left bank. Because the road surface is made of a soft carpet, bikes and pedestrians will walk on it silently making the view toward the city and the point of Saint-Aubin island more enjoyable.

The number of demonstrators against the postponement of the retirement age decreased in Angers

If the catch phrases were more diversified, if the liveliness of the procession was more visible with music, smokes, fireworks, the crowd clearly lose ground in the Angers protest against the postponement of the legal age to retire (60 to 62) which took place on october 16th. Almost half of the persons gathered for the last demonstration planned a former week end. If, at that time, the procession almost circled down town, recently, it was far from this importance.

Of course if the main issue gathering the people was unchanged (the reform of the pension system implemented by the french government), many other claims appeared written on the placards like the housing, the living conditions of immigrants (apparently unconcerned by the age of retirement), issues quite different. That time, the energy of the demonstrators clearly came from official parties like socialist party and ecologists, giving to the event a more political tone.

As before, the demonstrators of public sector (national education, firefighters, state bank) outnumbered those of the private sector. but at the same time, in the inner city, postmen were at work delivering the mails, indicating that the reform will go on without a hitch.

"Anjou and design", in Saint-Martin collegiate church

An exhibition untitled "Anjou and design, the itinerary of a tought-out object" is welcomed from october 15th till january 11th at the Saint-Martin collegiate church to promote some local companies which choose to design and to realize objects like armchairs, lamps, handbags or paper hangings in Maine et Loire. Silversmith, ceramist, fine leather craftsman or furniture designers among others, all shows in this exhibition the birth of their objects.

Among these, the Deux filles en fil company designs handbags from recycled raw materials the consumer has to make up with scratches and press-buttons. The result is elegant and clever. Curiously, Japan culture is blooming in Maine-et-Loire with the home furniture of Hiroyuki Yamakado and Miki Nakamura who, with her husband Jean-Michel Letellier, both established in Trélazé, create huge paper panels Japan styled.

The exhibition of contemporary objects fits perfectly with the historical atmosphere of Saint-Martin collegiate church giving to these crafts the hope of a resurrection or a birth. Their breathless productions which mix art and utility have a soul.

Demonstrators and consumers at the same time

A few days ago, october 12th, Angers was the scene of another demonstration against the government's project to reform the pension system. Most of the people walking in the streets were, according to the placards, civil servants or people working in the public sector (education, health, social organizations). But many of their counterparts in the private sector continued to work and the demonstrators needed them.

For the event, most of the lorries were rented by trade unions at supermarkets renting services which certainly were opened for business that day. But, because walking in the streets on that sunny morning made people hungry, after the demonstration, some of their leaders went to the restaurants in the nearby where cookers, barmaid were at work.

The logic would have been for the strikers not to go in such places in order to demonstrate their solidarity with the workers whom they said they have not the opportunity to strike. They acted like pure consumers ignorant of the constraints the workers of the private sector face.

"On the pavements : the plague..".

A walk along the trolley line in Angers down town makes notice that the pavements are already completely mudged by a plague of cigarette butts, chewing gum spits, dog excrements even if these urban equipments were laid only a few month ago. The case raises several problems whom the first is the lack of respect for the architectural design of the construction and, moreover, for the work people achieved in difficult conditions because the weight of the materials and the special postures they had all days long.

But, this fact reveals too the real insensibility the inhabitants have to ecological (and economical) necessities in spite of the stance they exclaim in the polls. How long time will nature (wind, rain, snow, ice, heat) need to erase these ugly marks ? And how much it will cost to the city to do it with men, machines and detergents?

In addition, the inhabitants seem, one by one, relatively, unconscious of the image of the city they contribute to damage. Angers is, like many french towns in comparison of others in europeans countries, quite dirty. It's probably the result of a lack of education inhabitants (as the French as a whole) have for public assets whom they will have nevertheless to finance the maintenance, among other things, in the (difficult) years to come.

The same day this article was published, the Angers medias announced the purchase by the city of a lorry dedicated to clean these pollutions.

The local wealthy households, on the focus of the medias

Once again, "the wealthies" are on sight in the local medias the day before a national protest against the reform of the pensions system (whom many editors are opposed) will take place in Angers and everywhere. One of these medias tried on october 11th to localize the most well off households of Maine et Loire. But the title "Where do the wealthy live in Maine-et-Loire?" sounds like "How do they look like?" and even "Wanted".

The local population and institutions seem more and more attracted by these christian values like poverty, partition and solidarity (a word seen daily, and in every way imaginable, in press coverages, even if solidarity doesn't make the people as rich as they would like to become). But in the same time, the same newspaper publishes, weekly, and on sunday, when people have time to read, a full page dedicated to actors, singers, top-models, all very wealthy persons...

French people claim the right to be different, in sexual inclinations, religious ideas, cultural origins except in the social area. That makes the ranking of people under the word wealthy towns a little bit discriminatory.

The confusing destruction of a bus shelter

Located boulevard Birgé (Angers city), this bus shelter has been severely damaged on the night of october 9th. Several back and side glass panels were smashed, leaving hundreds of small pieces scattered on the pavement and the street, endangering the zone fors drivers of cars and bicycles. In a visible effort to expand the breakage, the garbage can has been destroyed and its contents scattered below the shelter.

Who is going to pay for that? Probably not town hall because the company JCDecaux pays a fee to the city and will cover the costs of repairs by charging the advertisers who in turn will charge the producers and so till... the consumers. But, these are not the only damaged. The first victims are surely the users of that bus shelter who are certainly not wealthy persons.

Are they retired, workers of the factory nearby or school children? Probably they are modest households the authors of such inept act may be didn't want to punish? So why is the reason of such misconduct : drug abuses, overdrinking or simply disappointment, annoyance? The result is only damaging more citizens already in bad economic conditions. The destruction of something designed to give protection is a little bit indicative of the confusion of many people in Angers and elsewhere.

The 9th edition of Triptyque about contemporary art exhibits designers

The 9th edition of Triptyque was inaugurated on october 8th in three places of Angers city. This event, dedicated to contemporary art gathers more than 80 artists and 400 works. The design is, this time, focused by town hall as testifies the exhibition of modern furnishing. But the locations which host these collections, the parking lot of town hall, Angers theater and Saint-Aubin tower, also show paintings, photos and sculptures coming from twelve art galleries.

The Saint-Aubin tower emphasize the research on light of Philippe Daney whose the works (videos, mirrors, neon light) point out the indoor architecture of the monument. The theater welcomes Michel Jouët whose paintings, made of geometrical lines, call up the works of the spanish painter Joan Miro who, on the contrary, loves the curved lines. The parking lot of the town hall shows pieces of two designers coming from Quimper and the Granville Gallery.

About 27 000 visitors are waited in these three places till november 21st. In order to make esear the understanding of contemporary art, guided tours are planned. The entrance is free.

The social housing in Angers, an exhibition at Chemelier hall

Under the title "Home, it's life, an history of social housing in Angers", the Angers'town hall organizes, on october 15th, in Chemelier hall, an exhibition dedicated to this specific locative status and, quite often, architecture. Social housing is, since a long time (almost 80 years), present in Angers. Public and also private initiatives took part in the interest granted to the housing conditions of the workers. The inheritance of these two origins is visible in the coexistence of public and private organizations : in Angers, Angers Habitat, on one side and societies like Le toit Angevin and Le Val de Loire, on the other.

At the very beginning, it seems that the cottages was the most frequent residence dedicated to the workers. Some of them still exist in Angers but were outnumbered, ath the beginning of the 60's by buildings in which (according to the accounts of the new inhabitants of those flats) people were hapy to come in. During the 70's the trend reversed toward individuals homes. More than 35 000 social homes are counted in Angers.

If, since a recent period, the social organizations of Angers implemented important schemes of urban renewal, they are nevertheless weakened by the empoverishement ot the families they house, themselves affected by unemployment, a problem which makes the collective life in buildings, much more complicated. These organizations face a new challenge due the state financial difficulties : the necessity to sold a part of their properties to finance their projects. These could lead to an acceleration of the turnover of their inhabitants.

The young Angevins demonstrate against the reform of the pension system

Thousands of persons demonstrated once again in Angers against the government's projet to reform the pension system. If the circuit choosen by the demonstrators was quite identical to the former gatherings, this time, two new originalities emerged on october 2nd : the lenght of the cortege and the rejuvenation of the participants

The choice to demonstrate on saturday certainly attracted persons who, during working days, can't leave their jobs. When the last demonstrators turned right from Foch boulevard to King René boulevard, the first participants, a few minutes later, reached Plants garden junction. The cortege quite circled down down.

The other significant data is the presence of young and this is probably the most worrying of these two caracteristics because they would be the first victims of a statu quo. The main argument of the leaders is simple, but wrong : more the elder leave their jobs sooner, more the young have chance to enter active life quickly. Unfortunately the issue is financial. If the seniors leave their jobs, they will need pensions. More numerous they are, more the amount of the pensions is high.

But as the french society is becoming older, or the pensions decrease, or the contributions increase, or we share these two ways. That's the choice of the project : the delayed retirement age involve the employed as well as the retired. That's a maths issue, not a polical one.

Two female traffic wardens accused of denying assistance to an endangered senior

Two female traffic wardens of Angers city are accused of no assistance to an endangered person. On september 27th, a couple of senior people, a retired doctor, 80 years old and his wife, 78, stopped their car at the bottom of their home, in Chevreul street, Angers, just for unloading their suitcases. Because they stopped the car on a parking place reserved for ambulances, the two female traffic wardens ordered them go to another place. After her husband had parked the car, the lady got off, but stumbled and collapsed.

The husband, telling he is doctor, gives assistance to his wife, in front of the two traffic wardens who don't move. "They just looked at the scene, without doing nothing", remembers a witness. Another pedestrian, among others, saw all the scene : "The man tried to resuscitate his wife. I call the firefighters. The traffic wardens seeing the lady on the ground, said they were not responsible. When I just came back with a blanket, they had vanished". City hall confirmed that.

The town councillor of Angers in charge of the issue tried to defend the two traffic wardens, arguing they didn't have mobile phone, meanwhile the police station is located less than 50 m in the street. It was even written that the case was just "a storm in a tea-cup" (meanwhile a person is dead). Finally, the two traffic wardens got a psychological assistance from town hall. Not the husband...

The Confluences bridge of the trolley line ready for inauguration

The Confluences bridge will be inaugurated on october 15th. It will allow, from july 2011, the new trolley to cross the Maine between the hospital and the Gaumont multiplexe. The bridge is 293 m long, 17 wide and has a main span 161 m long. It wille be extended from the Maine by a slipway of 90 m long near the cinemas.

Eighteen companies have work on the project. The bridge is constituted by ten sections whose weight is from 30 to 50 tons each. A special crane was set up on the east bank of the Maine. He will overhand the national road 23 from 5 m high. His name was choosen after a public inquiry among 1 500 inhabitants.


The construction of the bridge started in 2008 and was due to be delivered on 2010.The Confluences bridge is part of the first trolley line whose length will be 12 km from Avrillé to La Roseraie linked by twenty five stations. The bridge will cost 27 millions € (7 millions more than expected due to the rise of the steel costs and the necessity to strenghen the foundations till 12 m under the river level), about 10% of the overall cost of the line.

An association collect the filth of Angers inhabitants.

An information published to day in the local press indicates how the inhabitants of Angers don't care their environment. Last friday, the members of an association cleaned the bank of the Maine, near Balzac Park. In only one hour, they collected a ton of wastes : tyres, oil cans, bottles and even two garbage cans trademarked "Ville d'Angers"...

But in town, it's the same thing. A few months ago the same press complained about the gums splitted on the new pavements of Alsace street. The city should stop collect the wastes (except the houseold garbage containers) threw away by cars and almost pedestrians! A clear exemple of such bad behaviour can be seen within the limits of the public works areas of the trolley and the end of every weekend. It seems that some people take pride with such uncivilities.

Such disdainful misconduct are ununderstanble with the present mood for ecology and the safety of nature. May be some people are not aware of the damages they creates (and the expenses they involve) complained the association.

Less demonstrators in Angers against the reform of the pension system

Demonstrators marched two hours in the streets of Angers against the reform of the french pensions system on september 24th. The participants gathered (were they as numerous as a few weeks before?) on the Maréchal Leclerc square from 10 am.

Entertained by the songs (going back to the 70's, a period of full employment in France), the opposants were galvanized by chants against Sarkozy giving a political more than a social tone to the parade. Then they marched along the Foch, then Roi René boulevards, crossed the Maine by Basse-Chaîne bridge before run in front of the Le quai theater.

The demonstration came back by the Ayrault and Carnot boulevards. It didn't last more than 2 hours. At 1 pm, the protesters separated. The estimations vary from 12 000 to 25 000 demonstrators in Angers. On the afternoon, they did the strike of the strike.

An inner city more and more anglicized

The inner city of Angers, which will host in a few weeks, an irish tea room in which only english will be spoken, is seeing the Shakespeare language gaining ground. More and more names of shop are in english and the reference to anglophone civilization is now quite frequent.

The bars are called : "Le snooker", "James Joyce", "Jet Lag", "Martin's", "Welcome", "Welsh", "Win's", "Matt Murphy's", "Montana", "Kent", "The Inishmore", "West Indie's cafe", "Donald's Pub" and so. The women clothes stores show the same trend ("Ikks Retail", "Jenny Mode", "La City", and of course "Levis store", "Mary Kimberley", "New Concept", "One Step", "Only Girls", "Blue Box") and, may be, outnumber the bar names. And if the shop is not yet open, the board on the shop front indicates "Coming soon..." (See "The Kooples", in Lenepveu street).

Even the lorries who supply the shop have ads written in english. The Plantagenets history has still marks in Anjou.

A "phenomenal" waiting time to get a municipal bike

The deputy-mayor of Angers has a very special sense of humor. Commenting in the local press of september 20th the waiting time the students have to accept in order to get a municipal bike - in spite the fact these have to queue since 3 hours am! -Bernadette Caillard-Humeau said without laughing : "It's a phenomenal success".

It is more surely a phenomenal mess : all bikes are lend free for a three months periode renewable three times. So a person can get a bike a year for free! Because the system is only possible one time per person, most inhabitants of Angers who pay taxes are not eligible for a bike! Most of the users are students who will not stay in Angers.

Since 2008, the quantity of bikes has doubled. But what about the waiting time to get a bike? Because the office is not open till 9.30, it's not sure Mrs Caillard-Humeau would get a "standing" ovation even from the students at 3 o'clock in the morning...

The economical message of the Angers' Journées du patrimoine

If the "Journées du patrimoine" 2010 were again a success in Angers, it has a lot to do with the lovely weather of that september 19th : 22 ° and a blue sky without a single cloud. People was probably eager to take advantage of what could may be the last weekend of summer. A lot of public and private monuments and places were open to public and in some streets of Angers (Toussaint street and La Doutre district) welcomed, with success, pedestrians in exhibitions of antiquities or flea market.

But that demonstrated, once again, that a living city in sunday is much more pleasant than the deserted city we can see most of the sundays of the year.

Why streets, shops and bars aren't opened that day? Why the city transport system is out of duty meanwhile the people need and would like to go throughout town on sundays like other days of the week? That would bring animation - and money - to the local economy. The crowds circulating in Angers that september 19th demonstrate, once again, that an economic offer (here of services) creates a demand, even on sundays. And consumers have the money to finance it!

A new tea shop in down town : english spoken... only

A tea house will open in Angers from mid november and, English will be the only one language spoken inside. "My favorite place", the name of the tea house, will take place in Espine street, a narrow and discreet way between the busy Lenepveu and Saint-Laud streets in down town.

The shop will be managed by Mary Lithoux-Greeen, an irish citizen who was, formerly, archeologist. The place (55 m2) is presently being renovated and will be dedicated to the tasting and selling of only anglo-saxon products.

With the english language library of Angers just a few streets down, ans "I-take" shop at the Ralliement square and several pubs in the surroundings, the inner city will have an english touch soon. Lovely, isn't it?