With the arrival of Monique Ramognino, the Angers mayor could see things with philosophy

Credit pictures Angers City

A page has maybe been turned over in the last mandate of Jean-Claude Antonini, mayor of Angers. The nomination (in fact an election) of Monique Ramognino as first deputy mayor of the city will undoubtedly ease the second part of the Antonini's term. Mrs Ramognino, till now in charge of cultural issues at the municipal council, is not a challenger of Mr Antonini, and no more for his possible heirs, Frédéric Béatse, Luc Belot or Jean-Luc Rotureau. 
 
The new deputy-mayor is very different of the former one, Bernadette Caillard-Humeau. With the departure of Mrs Caillard-Humeau, the political atmosphere will ease for Mr Antonini, who had open disagreement about the way Mrs Caillard-Humeau had run hers responsability. Taking her office, Mrs Ramognino stated that she would not have acted as Mrs Caillard-Humeau did for three years.

But the arriving of Mrs Ramognino could revive competition between the three possible candidates to succeed to Mr Antonini who maybe foresees to leave office before the next municipal polls of 2014. To a period of tensions with one deputy-mayor, another one, full of open ambitions, could arrive. Mrs Ramognino could see that new era with distance and philosophy, she taught before.

The Angers Loire Valley yule log for Christmas 2012

Credit Angers Loire Valley

The Chemellier hall hosted on December 16th an original contest : the best Angers Loire Valley yule log . A final selected the 10th best recipes of amateur pastry cooks of the city. The local media didn't published the results in their following day edition. For the jury, the most important standard of the yule log is its correspondence with "the identity of the territory", as it is written in the rule of the contest.

Credit Wikipedia

According to the survey commissioned by Angers Loire Métropole, the products symbolising the territory are (by order of decreasing importance) all edible : wine, slate nougats ("quernons d'ardoise") and Cointreau. So logically, the yule should display a piece of vine (instead of a piece of tree), slate nougats and be Cointreau flavored. The recipe must use local products. So the yule log should, logically, made of fruits like apple, pear or raspberries.



The winner will get fame because the Angers Loire Valley yule log wil bear the name of its creator and will see its recipe sold in all the best patisserie of Angers from Christmas 2012. And part of the profits will be transferred to caritative associations.Gastronomy will leave its mark on the end of 2011 because an exhibition is dedicated to Curnonsky, famous Angers gastronome.

Saint-Aubin str. stores display Christmas word

For the Christmas festivities, Angers gets a English touch. Many shopkeepers have decided to attract customers using over-Channel language. That trend is mainly visible in the garments stores where , brands, ads, objects and more and more messages are written in English . That is the case in Saint-Aubin street, one of the oldest way in down town Angers.

Many front side designers try to catch pedestrians' attention telling them it's time for an "Essential Christmas","hippie Christmas", "Sweet Christmas" or simply wishing a "Merry Christmas". Sometimes, a message mixes English and French. If some are understandable ("I love ma petite robe en maille"), for others, it's more difficult to get it. " Black and white glitter" (without an "s") is the best example. Other store owners decided to inform their customers in English about the very next future of their shop : low prices with "Shopping days" or "Liquidation avant relooking".

Moreover, the Soleils d'hiver event broadcasts a lot of English speaking hits (from UK or Us) which provides to the passers-by a pleasant change of scenery. But the prices are still indicated in euros and, according to the last Eurepean summit, the pound is nowhere near used in Angers.

"Confluences" drawings at sale : a bridge "over men"

Credit Wikipedia

A charitable auction sale was organized on December 15th in the Saint-Eloi Museum of drawings about the new trolley bridge "Confluences" who crosses the Maine River, in Angers. The initiative of that event was due to Angers Bamako Segou, an association which works to improve the daily life of Mali people in the field of education. The drawings were signed by Maurice Nadon, a former landscape architect who designed more thant 1 500 private gardens and terraces all over Europe.

Credit CCI of Maine et Loire

His drawings and watercolours gathered in a book "The idea of a bridge" tells the design and the construction of the "Confluences" bridge. All the sketches published in the book were on sale in that auction which will give the Angers Bamako Segou all the benefits of the event.

The book, whose interest comes mainly from the Maurice Nadon's quick sketched portraits, testifies the bridge was designed first as an aesthetic object : the inspiration precedes the calculations in geology, mechanic... and finances. And Maurice Nadon was in charge of the integration of the work in the Maine lanscape. The auction was a success, testifies the unassuming president of Angers Bamako Segou, Jean Perrault, who launched a charity bridge between men.

Flooded pavements in Angers down town due to driving rains

The present weather conditions over Angers make appear in Angers down town a disadvantage coming from the pedestrians surfaces set up around the central station of the trolley in Ralliement square. On Tuesday, the city was under a driving rain. The new pavements laid at the level of the streets were flooded and in its was impossible for women wearing ballet slippers (as fashion orders it) to cross the streets without soaking their feets.

 That high part of the city, built on hill along the river Maine left bank, maybe didn't get  storm drains sufficiently wide to absorb huge quantities of water as it is the case since a few hours. That stagnant water could even be risky for bikers going down from Saint Julien, then Louis de Romain streets before continuing along Plantagenet street till the riverside.

Météo France forecasts violent winds over Angers during Thursday fo Friday night coming along with heavy rains. More than thirty millimeters of water were recorded between Monday and Thursday. The same quantity was waited during the last night. 

The district meetings try to stimulate Angers inhabitants participation

The meetings between inhabitants of the different districts of Angers and the mayor, Jean-Claude Antonini, and his team of municipal councillors, is used as a way to demonstrate the results of the citizen participation town hall want to stimulate. Urban projects, economic activity and dynamism of local associations are the main issues of the dialogue Mr Antonini want to maintain with the Angevins. And during the expressions of questions or opinions, the frame of mind of the local representatives and of the inhabitants is getting out.

A kind of uneasiness is the outcome : from the participants and, sometimes, from the municipal officials themselves. The first ask economic activity, jobs and, finally, animation in their district and in their daily life. The persons involved in social communities fear these structures are endangered by the scarcity of public subsidies and their managers have "nightmares" face to the necessary lay-off of employees. For the town, its a dilemma, explained yesterday in Monplaisir, Mr Antonini : "If we grant allocations in the position of the state, this one withdraws silently and lets the burden to the city. But if the city withdraws, it's intolerable and damaging". 

But the mayor "is confident. If the inhabitants are united they will overcome difficulties". From a former doctor, that looks to a placebo.

The South ring road of Angers is not yet straight forward

Wikipedia

The car traffic should continue to increase in Angers and surroundings in spite of the will of public authorities to develop collective mode of transport and the soaring of gas prices in the years to come. The building of a way at the South of Angers city gathered 300 persons at the congress center. If some ecological communities claimed their opposition to such a project, it seems unavoidable that one will be implemented because the inhabitants of Les Ponts-de-Cé city live a permanent traffic jam.

Several projects have been conceived and, because they are all quite complicated because a lot of aspects have to be considered, the attempt of a participatory democracy is not easy. According to the observers, the more likely is a small South link digged on 7,5 km long which would go along La Roseraie district towards Sainte-Gemmes-sur-Loire and Les Ponts de Cé.

http://www.campdecesar.org/rocade.htm

The Angers Loire Métropole authority dedicated all a page of its website to numerous surveys and reports. The only certainty would be the increase of the traffic (near a 1/5th) up to 2020 and the project will not be implemented within several years because of the financial constraints. Until this time, the traffic will increase. The Alm authority would be well advised to educate its inhabitants to new way of transportations.

The confidence for the new Angers West commercial complex is, not at all, granted

Through the local medias, an issue is creeping into the minds of Angers inhabitants regarding the consistency of the projects of public facilities in the city and its surroundings. Between mid-november and mid-december, two of them have been openly discussed by newspapers in totally different fields. After the water complex located on the new Les Hauts de Saint-Aubin district, it's further the next Atoll commercial center to arouse questions and even doubts. Above all when the conjuncture is not favorable.

In an interview published on Monday by the daily Ouest-France, the tone is given as soon as the first question to Daniel Loiseau, in charge of the economic affairs at Angers Loire Métropole, "The Atoll, is it not the delusions of grandeurs?". The second questions is on the same vein : "Is such a concept not a little bit has been?". The third remark is not more tender! Regarding the customers Ouest-France wonders about their behaviour and guesses that "Maybe [the customers will take pleasure to visit the place], but will they buy items?". And so all article long...

Credit : Angers Loire Métropole

The main daily newspaper of France will dedicate an entire week to the issue. The idea on a reevaluation of important projects doesn't come from Ouest-france only. Recently, the daily Angers press wrote about a change of Angers policy regarding a reduction of real estate projects, the most important ambition of the city in the years to come...

The way to relieve traffic congestion in Angers down town could be long

 In spite of Angers city efforts to promote collective modes of transportation, the reign of individual cars isn't yet over. On December 11th Sunday evening, hundreds of vehicles were encircled down town in search of a car park available. At the end of the afternoon, Ralliement parking lot displayed "full" as Imbach square a few hundreds meters further. And some drivers didn't hesitate to occupy pavements or cyclable lanes for their vehicle.


Although the weather was rainy, thousands of families with kids, strollers and pets were wandering inside the tiny lanes of the Christmas village, waiting for a pastry, a glass of hot wine (with cinammon) or trinkets. One of the surprising things is, even that busy day, most of stores, except a few ones, were closed while numerous passer-by stopped along their front windows in search of an idea for a gift.


If the end of year festivities planned by town hall are a success, a forward-looking policy to relieve the traffic congestion and to enhance no polluting ways of transport has to be designed in Angers : prohibition of cars in down town and prohibition of parking cars in streets in which people don't live in, as it's the case in London, could be conceivable.

Mrs Caillard-Humeau criticizes the Angers trolley policy that she claimed to have run

In a statement read in front of the mayors of towns and villages members of Angers Loire Métropole, on December the 8th just before the withdrawal of her charges had to be voted, Bernardette Caillard-Humeau, who recently had already lost her responsabilities at the municipal council of Angers and in the Angers and surroundings authority, gave an information about the traffic of the new trolley. The number of travellers could not be as important as foreseen, according Mrs Caillard-Humeau who said : " There is still a long way to fill the trolley and the issues of parking lots are not alien to that".

The problem is Mrs Caillard-Humeau, former deputy-chairman of Angers Loire Métropole, was in charge of the transportation field when she was in office. In that field, she was also in charge of the VeloCité+ facility she described as a success while it was, in fact, a failure (the costs of renting bikes for visitors arriving in the railway station are too high and dozens of bikes are parked permanently to their hoops). She had also set up iron cage to park bikes around the city which are unused.

Her statement confirmed the difficult relationship she had with Mr Antonini : "I have my temper, but is it not necessary to have one to make things going on?", she said referring to the past, before adding, about the future : "I wish the new team will direct the chairman [Mr Antonini]... without fear, without half-measure". Mrs Caillard-Humeau counter attacked arguing that the withdrawal of its attributions was the consequence of a new political balance between centrists and socialists inside the majority. but she is not the first centrist allied to the left in Angers. Formerly there was an alliance under Jean Monnier mandate as Anges mayor and no clash occured.

Illuminations warm the core of Angers city

In Angers, one of the most meaningful signals of the end of the year festivities is the illuminations of the streets. Along the commercial ways, at the crossroads and in squares, a lot a monuments and front side buildings are enlighted. 

These compensate the earlier nightfall and the rainy weather which reign over the Angers province at that period of the year. The illuminations make the Angers down town more attractive for customers or even simple pedestrians. Thanks to them, the core of the city looks to a commercial center, the most important of all in Angers, point out the storekeepers as well the town representatives. 

The music adds to the magic of the atmosphere. During the last years, the most popular song broadcasted was an old one dedicated to "Papa Noël" which gave sadness instead of fun to the passer-by. it could be a good idea to choose Strauss waltzes to close the year. The organizers are, in 2011, more sensitive than formerly, to UH and English popular hits.

One of the most remarkable enlightments has been set up in Sainte-Croix square. It looks designed to give shelter to the speech of a king. Even the new trolley line has used its electrical devices for illuminations. If the periodical enlightments heat the climate, they nevertheless warm the atmosphere of the city, at least for a while.

Angers sends you its warmest greeters

Credit picture : Angers Loire Greeters

It was the perfect opportunity. In that period of Christmas and New Year "greetings", some Angers inhabitants choose to display their common point of interest : to help the visitors in the discovery of the town. Gathered in a association, they are the "Angers Loire Greeters", and are called that way... in French. They offer to the tourists "to visit Angers as these were with friends" simply because they have a passion for the town they live in and they live with. Five volunteers stride along streets and districts with a few persons staying in Angers for leisure or professional purposes.

"We are in the mood to make share our vision of the city. We offer individualized walks in touch with the main interests, strange places, good ways for shopping, nice green bits... We are on the lookout of life in town and its surroundings in order to mix proposals", says the deputy-chairman of the Angers Loire Greeters, Marie-Claire Planchenault.

Credit for text and picture : Angers city website

These have their website and will be in the wooden hut of Angers Loire Valley all day long on next saturday and sunday. "Angers Loire Greeters" is member of the Global Greeter Network, actively involved in English and French speaking towns like London, New York as well as Lyon or Marseille.  

The Angers cité : a path towards the past

Surrounded by traffic and illuminations for Christmas and New Year festivities, the Cité district in downtown Angers, located at the core of the city, is a world apart. After a few minutes through its deserted streets, the most surprising element is the silence, only interrupted by the tenor bell of the nearby Saint-Maurice cathedral. At that period of the year, obscurity invades quickly the cobblestone streets on which only ring out the steps of the pedestrian or the rattle of a bike.

The deep walls of mansions do not let a sound to leak out. Only some murmurs and rays of light escape from the shutters. The Cité district looks to be at bed as soon as nightfall arrives, like its inhabitants did in the ancient times. The pale and flickering street-lamps give a gloomy and even an hostile aspect of that historical district which doesn't want to attract curiosity.


If the architecture has been generally well preserved, thanks to the mullioned windowns and the large carriage-doors, the condition of the medieval timber-framed houses and mansions of XVIIIth century is sometimes unsatisfactory. Some new buidings have recently been erected and the quiet district which shuts itself off from the rest of the town could see its quietness be endangered by an important real-estate project in the former garrison-house. Except an old fashioned creperie is the unique appealing place at night. The cité keeps its mystery.

Angers website tries to enhance the English positioning of the city.

After, a year ago, the town hall made public a video "Angers get surprised" designed to promote the city and its surroundings towards businessmen, the municipal website recently renewed the experience. The welcome page of www.angers.fr introduced at mid-november a set of videos where foreign people give their opinion about the capital of Anjou. Among them, a Wigan representative, Susan Loudon, town councillor, reveals her first impressions when she visited Angers 10 years ago. These appear to confirm the relevance of the English touch of the new brand "Angers Loire Valley".


"When I visited Angers, history, the castle and the tapestry stroke me about the connections with Britain which is really important" said Mrs Loudon on the video visible on Daily Motion. "I was very surprised : Angers city looks like a seaside town even it's not". The town is "very welcoming, very clean and I got a feeling of summer even if we went there during autumn. It' a very colourful town".

Credit Wigan city

Regarding the people she met in the street, she thought they were welcoming and above all the shopkeepers even Mrs Loudon says she doesn't speal French. Curiously, the assessments written on "Angers get surprised" are quite negative, and almost agressive, about the use of English in the city promotion. Some Angers people should have more (British) phlegm.

The New Year festivities cancelled by Maine et Loire authorities : the stictness is under way

 "Save euro". If, during the last months, that leitmotiv was shouted at every level of the European Union, in Angers, it could take in the weeks to come another meaning : savings! Yesterday, the prefect of Maine et Loire, Richard Samuel, and the president of the Conseil général, Christophe Béchu, agreed to cancel the New Year celebrations. "This symbolic decision considering the money at stake signals the shared will of the two public authorities to postpone every unnecessary expense which do not take part directly to the implementation of a public policy".


In order to justify such a measure, the two officials mention "the difficult economic times the country is going through". Angers mayor, Jean-Claude Antonini, didn't, up to now, passed such a decision but, for years, the standing of the town hall New Year celebrations has been reduced.


Of course, some people will complain about the loss of a moment of warmth but the many others are waiting a clear signal for strictness. In France, such a word is worrying while it could be, to the contrary, reassuring. The opposite of strictness should give anxiety because in France public finances, the opposite has prevailed : laxity. There are a lot of savings to achieve.

A questionable "swimming poll" for Angers town hall majority

The Angers project of a play swimming pool could be symbolic of a gap between the under-standing of some repre-sentatives about the economic reality and the reality itself. Located in the new district Les Hauts de Saint-Aubin, the sports and play complex, due to open in November 2013, was designed this year by Angers town hall. The project, claims Angers city, could allow the inhabitants and other users, to take care of their health... a stake for the society as a whole. But another point is at stake, the finances of inhabitants can allocate to such a scheme : 34 millions €.

The appro-priateness is openly questioned by local medias because Angers inhabitants have recently, and will next year, put up with tax increases. According to the website dedicated to the scheme, "Thanks to the expected traffic, the profits will reduce costs for the tax payer". But, what will going on if the tax payer has not the sufficient resources to attend the swimming pool?

Credit : www.lepuzzle.angers.fr

If the investments Angers city has yet implemented or plans for the years to come are desirable (among them the new Maine banks reconquest, a second trolley line and a very ambitious real estate program), inhabitants look worry about their endurable financing in harh economic times when, first of all, savings become a priority.

In consequence of the economic crisis, Angers Loire Métropole gets closer to local companies

The initiative of Angers Loire Métropole (Alm) went unnoticed but is meaningful of the worries of the authority about the local companies. After the increase of local taxes that year and the soaring of the unemployment, Alm is eager to renew its links with the business community. The agglomeration has set up a department dedicated to welcome, but above all to retain its companies. The Angers area has been divided in four parts with, for each, a person always ready to listen to the worries of small or big companies regarding urban environment, employment and so.

Through that way, Alm tries to balance its relationship with inhabitants (who are electors) on one side, and the companies (which may come, stay, go away or disappear) on the other side. If the emergence of a local democracy is something important for the president of Alm, in addition mayor of Angers, it's a long time the local businessmen didn't get a direct contact with their representative.

Credit Picture Angers Loire Développement

The economic trend could nevertheless be worse during the 2nd semester of 2011 and all 2012 because of the crisis of the public debt. The local status has been measured as sufficiently worrying by the French state which has just awarded 1 million € in order to ease the current restructuring of the territory.

The Ralliement square warms up for Christmas

With the imminence of the Christmas and end of the year festivities, the open-air market set up in Ralliement square give of it a totally different aspect. The temporary wooden huts positioned over the square, but also the giant Christmas tree, as well as the furniture arranged by restaurants on both sides of the Ralliement bring out the feeling of vacuum when the place isn't used for special events. Considered a little bit cold at the time of its inauguration, the square demonstrates its ability to change its face.

Presently the village of small houses gives life and intimacy to the area. Positioned under a geometric plan, the huts invite the pedestrian to a pleasant stroll among lights, colours, products and smells of Christmas. Many pedestrians apparently have fun to wander in this "comic's village" or to stay for a while with a glass of hot wine flavoured with cinnamon. The attractiveness of the village will be more enhanced when the giant Christmas tree stood at the bottom of the Nouvelles Galeries will be illuminated. 

The outdoor fitting of the restaurants contribute to heat up that barren area. Sun umbrellas equipped with heaters hosts consumers eager to have a large view on this liven up panorama. Only music is lacking. Let us hope that the soppy hit of Tino Rossi will not be broadcasted in loops. 

English speaking films for a week at Les 400 Coups movie theater

Ten English or American movies are now showing at the 400 Coups cinema during an "English speaking movies week" from November 30th to December 6th. This is not the first edition of that event. Last year the 400 Coups initiative had attracted more than 2 600 persons, most of them pupils. The theme of that week is "Politically correct?" and some of the movies will be introduced by teachers in cinema.

Some of the movies are quite old, "Mr Smith goes to Washington", directed by Franck Capra in 1939, others are new : "The King's speech", screaned in 2011 and directed by Tom Hooper. Some of them are iconic, like "Full metal jacket?" of Stanley Kubrick.If all of them are fictions, one is not : "Capitalism : a love story", of Michaël Moore. This movie could explain the theme about "Political correctness" which has, maybe two meanings. 

The "politically correct" denotes language seeking to minimize, in excess, the wording which could offend a category of the population. This behavior will end up to set a intellectual constraint every body must to accept. The second meaning, and perhaps the most insidious, is the language ends up by controlling the thought. In that way, the "Policitical correctness" become a kind of intolerance. So the 400 Coups theater could be right to warn the Angers inhabitants about that danger.

Other weeks dedicated to movies in their original language are planned in 2012.

Angers city lays the table for Curnonsky

Credit pictures Angers city

The end of the year festivities will certainly, in Anjou, one of the finest places of French cuisine, give to many families the opportunity to improve their daily menus. Angers town hall will help. The city has opened on Wednesday an exhibition dedicated to Curnonsky, the Prince of gastronomy in Chemellier hall. Better known for his pen-name, Maurice Sailland, (10, Contades avenue in Angers, 1872 - Paris 1956) became the most celebrated writer on gastronomy in France during the 20th century.

He wrote over 65 books and enormous numbers of newspaper columns. He is often considered the inventor of gastronomic motor tourism as popularized by the Michelin guide (though he himself could not drive).  The name "Curnonsky" means in Latin (cur + non : "why not?") plus the Russian suffix -sky, as all things Russian were in vogue in 1895, when he coined it. He once said that this nickname was "my tunic of Nessus, as I am neither Russian, nor Polish, nor Jewish, nor Ukrainian, but just an average Frenchman and wine-guy [sacavin]".

Often called the prince-elect of gastronomy, he had in fact been duly elected in a poll of 3,000 chefs in 1927. A celebrated aphorism of Curnonsky's was: "Good cooking is when things taste of what they are". He advocated simple food over complicated, rustic over refined, and often repeated the phrase "And above all, keep it simple!". In 1930, he co-founded the Académie des gastronomes, modelled on the Académie Française. 

In 1947, he started the magazine Cuisine et Vins de France. In 1950, he was a co-founder of the Confrérie de la chaîne des rôtisseurs. Curnonsky died by falling out of the window of his apartment. He was dieting at the time. [with the help of Wikipédia]