Saint-Serge district becomes studious from dawn to nightfall

In spite of their classes all day long and the homework the have to do at night, students attend regularly special tuitions delivered by private companies in Angers. Many companies appeared in the city and, among them, Completude, Acadomia or KeepSchool which teach to primary and secondary school pupils or students of different universitarian fields. 

Apparently these schools meet an important success due to the evolution of the French educational system often criticized by "consumers" and teachers and because of the very difficult selection process students face at the end of the first year of their studies. At 7.30 pm on the Defi classes on Ayrault boulevard a lot of students were working with a teacher as young as they are.

Located in Saint-Serge square, these classes give to the district a student touch. Universities of law and medecine are not far and an student residence has been erected on the same place. Students are coming and going in the square from dawn to nightfall. With the project of a new congress center near the Le Quai theater, it is said that the present congress center could leave room for another university. the Saint-Serge district hasn't yet finished to change.

Bike speeds things up in Angers

The use of bike could be in appreciable increase in Angers Loire Métropole. According to the managers of the Decathlon superstore of Les Ponts de Cé, the last Trocathlon edition, which took place from the 15th to the 23rd october woulhd have been caracterized by an important barter regarding bikes. On 17th october, the store had no second-hand bikes to sell. The reasons to such a passion are, for some of them, local and , for others, common to France as a whole.


On a local level, Angers city realizes an important promotion of that mean of transport. More and more public bikes are rented (mostly to students) for free while others are paying (beyond understanding) for people coming in the city for leisure or work. At the same time, Angers has built and still plans numerous cyclable lanes (83 km long) and more than 1 200 cycle racks all over the city have been fit up. Of course, the set may be improved but the aid is unquestionable.

Credit Angers city

In order to promote the use of bike in town, groundbreaking solutions could be implemented. One of these would be to prohibit the use of cars in an area larger than the pedestrian downtown, and during all the weekends long. That would be make the involvment of the city, which will soon introduce a climate plan, in the sustainable development.

The interference of mayors on sunday superstore opening doesn't convince customers

In spite of the critics expressed on october 14th by the representatives of Angers Loire Métropole, i.e. the mayors of the towns members of that authority, on the next sunday morning, the parking lot of the Leclerc superstore of Saint-Jean-de-Linières was rather occupied. If Jean-Claude Antonini and his colleages have an opinion about the effects of the sunday opening of stores, the consumers have their own they expressed with their cars and their wallets. 

All the shops of the commercial gallery ot the Leclerc were closed so the customers, and in among them many young families, could only buy food products. At the same time, the open-air market of Monplaisir was certainly crowded and, because of its size, looks like a giant superstore by itself and is free from critics coming from local authorities.


If Angers and its surroundings benefited of a mild and sunny weather, the families apparently considers nobody is entitled to say them what it'good or bad for them and what they have to do. And if many persons support Mr Antonini's opinion, others think he has no right to infere in such a matter. Should people unique responsible to decide how to sped their free time, especially since the reduction of working time which does Angers inhabitants have time to spend a money they haven't?

The tricolour flag exposes itself on october... 15

The fact is unusual in the Angers streets when it's not a legal holiday. On october 15th, a red, white and blue French flag flied smoothly in the front window of the Serge Blanco store, in Saint-Laud street. A few meters lower than the My favourite place tea shop (full that afternoon), the sportswear store celebrated the (small) victory of France over Wales in the semi-final rugby world cup. 

In England, and particularly in USA, the presence of the Union Jack or The Star Spangled Banner, is much more frequent and not only on front sides of buildings or at the top of monuments. In a city representational of France, the tricolor flag is not as visible as in the countries above. Its presence in the street made a colourful point in a busy place where by-passers and customers were taking advantages of the last rays of sunlight. 

It was also an clever way to attract consumers toward rugby-styled garnments which will be at the credit of France for the days to come. Within a week, France will face to (probably) New-Zeland for the final rugby world cup. And if all goes well, the Serge Blanco flag will not be "all black".

With 31 000 travellers per day, the Angers tramway traffic may not be a record

During its first months of running the Angers tramway has transported 31 000 travellers per day. Is that figure, announced by Bernadette Caillard-Humeau, the indication of a success or not? The answer to that question depends on the affluence recorded in cities having the same size of Angers (148 000 inhabitants). Clermont-Ferrand, Le Mans, Nancy, or Valenciennes are points of comparison because they only have one line of tramway.


In Le Mans (143 000 inhabitants) for example, the tramway transports around 45 000 passengers per day on a larger line, 15 km (Angers line is 12 km) with 30 stations (25 at Angers). In Clermont-Ferrand (148 000 inhabitants), the tramway transports 45 000 persons a day while in Valenciennes, a Northern city smaller than Angers, the unique line tranports 29 000 passengers a day. In Nancy (106 000 inhabitants), the average number of travellers is 50 000 persons daily.


So its not sure the Angers tramway does better than the others. But it's not sure the traffic will not increase. On some part of the line, especially between Avrillé and Angers, the wagons are quite empty. The affluence is more important inside the Angers town itself. According to some business man and inhabitants, a route linking the industrial zones of Beaucouzé and Saint-Barthélémy, through the Belle-Beille and Saint-Serge campus wouold have been more buoyant. Suggested by the economic authorities of Angers, it could never take place.

Real restate : scheming schemes in Angers

An observation common to many inhabitants is the pace of construction of buildings and the number of projects in Angers city. On october 10th, townhall showed a new district which will take place with hotel, housing, stores and appartments, all near the Saint-Laud railways station. The following day, the Angers representatives announced their intention to build a new congress center. 

Regarding these two schemes, the city want to go fast : "I want the Congress center started in 2012 and opened in 2016", said Jean-Claude Antonini, mayor.

 Regarding the future Gare + district, the works will start next year. The reconquest of Maine banks and more than 2 500 new homes per year during ten years are some of a "bulimia" of buildings in Angers.

Many observers, professional or not, are puzzled in front of such projects. And the strategy of townhall looks unclear. It is like a bet on the growing difficulties of housing (in Paris for example) the employees will face to find a home not too expensive and not too far from their jobs. Maybe the Angers townhall thinks the enterprises will come in the region because there is housing capacities in Angers. 

From a cultural point of view, the public authority wants to wake up the city too often compared to a lethargic place and even victim of the sweet life praised a long time ago by Joachim du Bellay, a symbol still vivid in minds. Instead of turning its back to the globalization time, Angers want to dive in it, convinced there is no other choice.

The Angers Municipal Institute will deliver conferences in English

Stonehenge

A few months after the publication, in English, of two flyers dedicated to the stories of the Saint-John's Hospital and the Barrault mansion, the city of Angers is going into conferences delivered at the Municipal Institute, in English. The speaker will be Roy Fuller, a professor of the Western Catholic University. Mr Fuller will intervene between december and april on the "Early British History". The choice of English appears to be an originality and may a first in the range of conferences offered by the institute.

Hastings (Credit Wikipedia)

This cycle of four conferences is suitable for persons "of all ages (?) having a medium or higher level in English", warns (in French) the authority and will deal with the history of England from the Ice Age to the Norman conquest and by the way Stonehenge, the arrival of Christianity....


Many other conferences could be delivered in English because the teaching of that language is an old story at the Municipal institute : the first classes were delivered in 1879. And one of his former manager, Michel Leterme, an Anglicist, suggested the twinning of Angers with Wigan. It could be useful to enlarge the English spoken conferences to contemporary issues. That could help to bring cultures together and improve the vocabulary of the members.

Letter from the editor

Thank you Damien & World Traveller for your appreciation to that blog, but above all for promoting Angers city abroad. No, Angers Daily News is completely independant from the townhall of your native land. Furthermore, we don't have the slightest idea about the ranking of this blog on Google. If the rank is good, that's for us big news. But how do you see that?
Warmest regards
Ed

Abstract words of welcome

Angers city seems eager to integrate its new duties in language in the same way of its brand "Angers Loire Valley". On october 8th, a gathering of foreign inhabitants was set up at the initiative of the Council for the citizenship of angevins foreigners. That organization was created by townhall in order to be "a place of expression, dialogue, listening between the municipal team and foreigners" along with "an instance of consulting, driver of proposals and actions regarding all issues which impact foreign residents in the city".

Credit Angers city and Angers Municipal Institute

In order to inform people about that meeting, a flyer was published in several languages, one of whom was English. Unfortunately, the editorial article of the document, written by the mayor, which, in simple words, explains what the Council is, wasn't translated. So the foreign readers had to cope with series of abbreviations and abstract words like "harsh social context", "local networks" or others "possible levels" all very difficult to understand especially by those coming from developping countries.


In fact, even with open-minded persons, local authorities seems a little bit reluctant to use the international language English is. At the Municipal Institute, classes of basic French are provided to foreign people but the flyers detailing theirs pratical details are written in French. Come on! Let's get over with.

La Rochefoucauld : a risky parking lot

News analysis. - The idea of Bernadette Caillard-Humeau, former deputy-mayor of Angers and now simple assistant, to make the La Rochefoucauld parking lot coin-operated instead of free, could not let the mayor, Jean-Claude Antonini, indifferent. The place is distant from the first employer of the city, the University Hospital Center (Chu), from two hundreds meters. The Chu employs about 4 900 persons and 1 000 praticioners. Probably a part of them park their car in the La Rochefoucauld facility, for free. 


It could be obviously difficult for these persons, without consequences on their productivity in the hospital and above all the safety of their patients, to put coins in the ticket machines of the parking lot several times a day, especially when they are assigned in an emergency unit. Such an evolution would have, certainly, lead the hospital employees to complain to their employer, whose chairman is... the mayor of Angers, Jean-Claude Antonini, himself patient of the hospital a few months ago and happy with the cares he received there.


The dangers of such a risky conflict were not only actual for the persons under treatment in the hospital, they could have been damaging for Mr. Antonini's team in townhall (even if, the La Rochefoucauld parking lot fitting deserves to be reconsidered). Maybe Mrs Caillard-Humeau is wounded, but the self-esteem wounds are curable. The mayor knows it, he was general practicioner...

Gulps and puffes, back and forward, along Bressigny street to cope with double regulation

Many students and young people use to have fun two or three days per week in the bars located in Angers downtown most of the time between thursdays and saturdays, given that they are at the end of a week or on the eve of a weekend. For them, have fun means very often enjoy a drink (sometimes it's more than one drink) and smoke some cigarettes. The problem they face comes from the implementation of two regulations, one local about the consumption of alcools in the streets and another regarding the prohibition to smoke in the bars.


A year ago, Angers representatives prohibited to consume alcoolic beverages on the streets after 10.00 pm because of numerous complains from neighbours of bars (and maybe townhall staff who has to clean up the mess after evenings washed down with beers), the consumers have to take their drinks inside the "cafés". But, at the same time, they love to smoke. Unfortunately (for them) it's now forbidden to smoke inside the pubs. So how to manage to be in and out at the same time?


Some of the consumers found a trick to overcome the case. Along Bressigny streets, they stay at the entrance of the bars, step back to swallow a gulp and step beyond to have a puff, as long as the evening lasts... The scene, quite original, could become risky as the weather is getting colder. Bad colds aren't far. They will be cured by rums and inhalations... at home!

From a crack to a fracture in townhall majority coalition

The crack in the unity inside the majority of  the Angers town council is now a compound fracture. After she was reframed by the mayor of Angers, Jean-Claude Antonini, last week for an anouncement judged wrong about the free access of the La Rochefoucauld parking lot (see a former article "Crack in townhall on La Rochefoucauld parking lot" in this blog), Bernardette Caillard-Humeau has been deprived of the powers she had up to october 7th : the streets, the traffic and the mobility.

 That decision may have two consequences : first the start of a process aiming at the succession of Mr Antonini who could resign before the official end of his office and give way to his political heir, even if that man - or that woman - is not  yet known. If Mrs Caillard-Humeau had planned to be that person, she was wrong and the La Rochefoucault case would have only been an excuse. 

The mayor and his former deputy-mayor (Credit Angers city)

But the second consequence could be more important and could even be a backlash for the present majority if Mrs Caillard-Humeau and her supports join the minority lead by Laurent Gérault. If this new coalition is formed, the next local polls for Mr Antonini's heirs would be more dificult than the previous, yet won with a small margin.

Three Angevins want the Pignerolle's bunkers resist to neglect

A team of three Angevins wants to revive ten bunkers erected by the German army at Pignerolles park, in a neighbouring city of Angers : Saint-Barthélémy d'Anjou. The three men, Steve Doizy, Michel Letertre and Christophe Marquet "hope to promote the historical heritage constituted by the bunkers", indicates the website of their association "Memorial of the bunkers of Pignerolles".

An anti-atomic shelter built for the general de Gaulle but almost the former bunker of the admiral Dönitz where the communications center between his headquater and the u-boot submarines was located, deserve to be restored. In order to realize their projects, contacts have been taken with some of the main representatives of Maine et Loire who, for some of them, think it would be foreseable to imagine in the place a memorial corresponding to the one of Caen where classrooms of Angers and surroundings could be taught about the second world war. 

According to the promoters of the idea, "Pignerolles constitutes a place of privilegied evocation of crucial and painful period of the Angers, French and European history, that numerous witnesses can et wish to recall". 


Credit pictures "Memorial of the bunkers of Pignerolles"

The Angers tramway awarded in London for a Worldwide Project of the year

The Angers tramway received on october 5th in London an award for the "Worldwide project of the year" granted by the Light Rail Awards. This prize is an initiative of an English  magazine "Tramways & Urban Transit", a worldwide publication for the light and urban rail industries. Now in its 74th year, it is unique as a magazine founded on the needs of transport operators, planners, manufacturers and campaigners for better public transport in congested towns and cities. 
 
The event took place in a building of the Honourable Artillery Company located in London and Angers tramway was competing with two hundreds projets coming from seven countries. These Light Rail Awards are now in their fifth year. The Uk under-secretary of transport attended the event.


This prize could be helpful for the city to enhance its fame on an international scale (thanks to the new territory brand, Angers Loire Valley) but the news was just indicated in a few lines of Métropole, the magazine of the agglomeration authority and it is not announced the carriages of the Angers tramway will show the UK award.

The issues 1 and 33 of Metropole Le Magazine do a complex number

 In communication, is Angers Loire Métropole goes all out or does it derail? The inhabitants received in their letterbox recently the magazine simply denominated Métropole published by the local authority. Its front page indicates number 33 october-november-december 2011. But at the same time, dozens of advertising spaces in Angers annouced the number one of... Métropole published in october 2011 : "The news in large : october 3rd, the new magazine gives you rendez-vous order to meet you". What to believe?

Some of the contents of the publication and the poster are the same : "Ideas ahead of time" as well as "News of towns". These overabundant publications is the result of a visible will to accelerate the fame of the city and to enhance the self-confidence of the inhabitants. That's good but, take care with the risk of an over self-confidence which could become pride.
 
This is linked with another advertising campaign of Angers Loire Valley all over its territory : "Proud to be Angevins". But what is the target : the people who yet live in Angers or those who don't... presently? Of course, the inhabitants must be convinced of the assets of their city in order to promote it outside, but will it be sufficient?

The Cancerology West Institute of Angers let the mayor speak about his own cancer

The walls of the ground floor in the West Institute of Cancerology, formerly Paul Papin center, located in Angers are covered by pictures of former patients, each of them letting a message for the next sick persons having to come for care. The faces are often smiling and the words delivered are a hope for those who read them for the first time. Among the patients who have been cured here, one is well known of the Angers inhabitants, because its the mayor of the city, Jean-Claude Antonini himself.

The mayor of Angers, who was cured for a lung cancer at the beginning of 2011 when he was 71, is smiling like the others patients and points out he was a general practionner before entering in politics, so well aware of the nature of his own illness. His face is beardless (coincidentally (?), he wore beard during all the works of the trolley) and his look is the one the Angers inhabitants are familiar with. 

The lesson it could be possible to extract from such an experience is "transparency" (his own word) about cancer like a way to lighten the burden of anxiety and pain. Fortunately, the mayor came through and was able to return to his responsabilities. He remembers this transparency gave him a lot of friends and the comfort of his "Angers family".

Crack in townhall on La Rochefoucauld parking lot

Two recent issues, one politician and another urbanistic, were recently interlaced in the news of Angers : the free parking lot of La Rochefoucauld square and the reframing of the deputy mayor Bernadette Caillard-Humeau, by the mayor himself, Jean-Claude Antonini. A few days ago, the first announced that place could become not free in 2012 and a few hours later, she was refuted by her ally. 

Free or not, the La Rochefoucauld square is one of the ugliest place of Angers. Rounded by hundred-years-old plane trees, this giant square is invaded by cars all year long except during the Saint-Martin fair. The economical logic would be to end with its free in order to increase the number of the trolley's travellers. But many persons in Angers don't use the line and probably they are fed up to pay for everything. Some of them work in the hospital nearby which is the first employer of the town and a tank of votes.


A few years ago, the mayor of Angers dismissed one of his deputy mayor (Hervé Carré) after he expressed an opinion different of the one of the mayor. Mrs Caillard-Humeau could be advised to remember that fact unless she is thinking about the future local polls, but it's not sure her idea will be very popular.

Sun without sums ?

In a little royal style, the mayor of Angers granted to his subjects the possibility to take a drink on the open air terraces of cafes during that unusual lenthening of summer. "I wish the Angers inhabitants may benefit of their downtown while summer is still there", said Jean-Claude Antonini on the website of the townhall.


The measure is appropriate because the weather was quite disappointing during july and august in Angers (as elsewhere) and has been surely welcomed by the restaurants and cafes owners throughout the center district. Already weakened by almost three and a half years of work for the trolley line, most of the restaurant and cafe owners along the tracks desperately needed a profitable end of summer season. It would have been unfair to deprive the storekeepers and the consumers of pleasure... and receipts.


In fact, a part of these are destinated to cityhall, and a part of this part comes from the terraces. These equipments, when they are located in the public domain (pavements, squares, gardens), are not free. The store owners have to pay a tax for them (and their amount could increase because of the ranking of Angers in the touristic cities category) in the future.


Presently Angers city, like many others, is eager to get money in order to balance its budget. Maybe the taxes on terraces are cheap (a few euros per square meter?) in Angers, but at least they were additionnal sun... and sums.

The critics against the opening of stores on sunday in Angers are a flexible geometry

The opening of stores on sunday continues to fuel protests from the ecological movement in Angers. It was the case with the accessibility to customers of the Leclerc superstore, at Saint-Jean-de-Linières, every sunday since the beginning of september. After the critic from Jean-Claude Antonini, the mayor of Angers, it's the turn of the "Europe écologie les verts" to harshly criticize the decision of the superstore, considering the case as a "intolerable social drawing back".

If the opposition to such commercial activity is acceptable (even when the economy is badly damaged and need more flexibility to fuel growth and jobs), the stance of "Europe écologie les verts" is a flexible doctrine... At the same time, and in the same website, Angers Maville, another news describes the opening, all the weekend long, of the fair of biological food, an economical activity praised by the ecologists, at the center of exhibitions of Angers....
 
The biological food exhibition on sunday was never criticized by the "Europe écologie les verts", nor by the mayor of Angers who even, rent its center for the fair, making compulsory for people to work on sunday.

English on Angers front stores

Pupils are not the only population to face English words during their timetable. The revival of stores' sales after the summer break prompts the stores' owners to promote their products in English. Angers consumers have to be more and more fluent in Shakespeare's language. A health club, a hotel, garnments stores, shoes stores try to attract consumers as if the use of English words was a way to move them abroad.


We are in the "shopping days", reminds Antonelle to consumers in Alsace street while another a few meters higher points out he sells at "good prices". Others stores try to stimulate a complicity with the pedestrians in order to lead them to come in : "We love pinguins" says one in Saint-Aubin street and another confesses "No matter what season, I love wasting time with you...".


These ads make the billboards depicting teenagers "proud to be angevins" a little bit more has been. What is the goal of the advertiser (Angers townhall)? Apparently, the target is much more sensitive to English language. The use of that idiom could have been almost as efficient as the use of French which does not give to the Angers youngs the feeling they are different. Local stores owners don't hesitate in boldness : a health club located on Foch boulevard puts up "more energy, more life" near a funeral store... Oh my god!