Frédéric Béatse and Christophe Béchu introduced their ideas for Angers on France 3

Frédéric Béatse and Christophe Béchu, both of them candidates to the 2014 municipal elections were on Decembrer 13th on France 3 channel to introduce their respective programmes and the mood of their electoral campaign. The main facilities these reprentatives plan to set up in the city during the next term were the principal topic of those successive expressions, Christophe Béchu first, then Frédéric Béatse. The way the public channel led those interviewes gives the idea the two candidates are in the same political position : each of them with a challenger in his own side, Laurent Gérault against Mr. Béchu and Jean-Luc Rotureau against Mr. Béatse. 

Regarding the 1st round of the municipal elections, Christophe Béchu explained why Laurent Gérault will not be included in his list : "I shall not negociate with the political structures and I shall not change my list two weeks before the second round". Frédéric Bétase having a similar problem with Jean-Luc Rotureau, he said Mr. Rotureau's candidacy was "a disappointment". 

But the largest part of the broadcast was dedicated to the facilities both candidates want to implement in Angers. The first opposition is about the route of the tramway between Belle-Beille and Monplaisir. The current mayor wants to see it joining the railway station (from the Basse-Chaîne bridge) while his opponent prefers to locate it differently (from the Verdun bridge towards the centre of congress). Another major approach is about the redevelopment of the Maine banks. Mr. Béchu is favourable to a cover othe current speedway et criticize the idea of the city council majority to burry that facility in order to build a new one in surface, while the current mayor thinks "Mr. Béchu's project brings back Angers to the 70's".

The economy issue was rather analysed than a review of projects. Mr. Béatse bets on the professional electronic (Loire Electronic Valley) to replace the consumer electronic disappearance (Technicolor) and Mr. Béchu in a big bang in the Angers economic structures he wants to gather to be more efficient. The true face to face between candidates will come later, said France 3.

Ways and voices in the Angers political landscape

B. Dupré

If many people criticize in France the fact the country is splitted between left and right, at the same time, political representatives, and even public medias, amplify the phenomena. In Angers, things do not really look clear in the centrist "family" which, theoretically, had been in position to support a centrist candidate betwen left and right. But, some of the local members of the Mouvement démocrate (Modem) and the Parti radical, others from the Union des démocrates indépendants (Udi), all centrists, have decided to support the Union pour une majorité populaire (Ump) candidate, Christophe Béchu, at the next municipal elections.

L. Gérault

Those have  made public on December 12th the reasons of their choice in favour of Mr. Béchu pointing out that their national leaders had nevertheless decided to be allied under the same banner, L'Alternative.The same day, a meeting was due to take place in Paris between the national decision-makers of the Udi and the Modem to settle the Angers case, after the Udi national leaders confirmed the nomination of Laurent Gérault, Udi delegate, so centrist (and himself supported by some Modem members!), as candidate for Angers mayor office. If the Modem leader at the Angers city council, Bernard Dupré, said he was sure that the way of an union with Christophe Béchu would get a "go-ahead", another of his colleagues in the minority side of the same assembly, Daniel Dimicoli (Parti radical) admitted implicitely that this was not so sure : "a choice has been made up even if we don't agree".

J.L. Rotureau

On the other side of the political landscape, i.e. on the left, Jean-Luc Rotureau, former Angers deputy-mayor and candidate to mayor office, claimed that France 3, a public tv channel, had choosen to organize a debate only between Frédéric Béatse, socialist candidate and current mayor and his conservative challenger, Christophe Béchu. Under the title "Voice is free", the broadcast will consecuently exclude the other candidates. Why, asked Mr. Rotureau who said he was shocked, pointing out that "the voice is not free".

Tthe candidate Frédéric Béatse announces his projects for the attractiveness of Angers down town and territory

Frédéric Béatse, candidate to his own succession for the next municipal elections, having duly recorded theAimer Angers five new projects he wants to implement during the next term. All these schemes have in common the "heart of the Angevine agglomeration" because "the development of the core of the agglomeration is fundamental for the employment and the future of our territory", the website explains.
new pace of the electoral campaign noticed a few days ago, has announced on December 11th through the website

In that perspective, the most important is the continuation of the enlargement and the expansion of the railway Angers Saint-Laud. That facility "must be a pivot of Angers development and able to answer to the inhabitants' needs of mobility". A new step will consist in the building a second railway station located at the South of the current one, partly because the access to the facility from the North is already complicated. "Everything must be done to enforce that positive asset for the city" what officialy contradicts recent rumors about a possible bypass of Angers with a new line from Nantes. Angers can't be circumvented, points out Aimer Angers.

The new commercial center and its glass gallery

Another facility had already been promised by Mr Béatse, as Angers mayor : the cons-truction of a second tram-way line. Given the" positive impact" of the A line, the candidate considers the new one is "a priority Angers Loire Métropole will have to implement". Unlike most of the candidates, Frédéric Béatse wants it set up between Belle-Beille (the Technopole) and Monplaisir (Europe square) with a stop close to the railway station and a section along the Foch boulevard. The extensions of the line towards Beaucouzé and Saint-Sylvain d'Anjou (6 km saved up) would come after 2020.

The Maine banks projets is considered through the favourable economic consequences (and not only environmental) it must have on Angers with 600 000 m2 from 2014 and during the next 25 years. The place should be dedicated to "creative companies" with a specific building "the creative maket building"(6 000 m2) for companies involved in plants, electronic, pictures and contemporary music. That facility should be st up in 2016 or 2017. The Saint-Serge district will be redevelopped and a new "Maine square" drawn.

The attention of the candidate is also about the commercial activity of Angers down town Mr. Béatse doesn't want to let it drop. The critics about the mineral aspect of the Ralliement square have been listened and the candidate wants to make easier the access with "pedestrian circuits on the thematic of vegetable". The idea he (and Jean-Luc Rotureau) puts forward is the creation of a new commercial centre in place of the post office with "new brands to attract new consumers".

Angers Chu cooperation with Malian doctors may make them self-sufficient in heart surgery

After the warm down in Bamako, the Mali capital Angers is twinned with for years, the cooperation between the two cities has resumed, specifically in the medical field. A team of the universitarian hospital centre of Angers was recently there in other to help the Malian doctors in the development of heart surgery. The professor Jean-Louis De Brux of the Chu of Angers carried out with Malian surgeons of the Point G hospital close-heart surgical interventions on four children between two and six years old.

Prof. Jean-Louis De Brux

According to L'Essor, a Mali newspaper," that achievement could accelerate the development of open-heart surgery in the point G hospital". Some of the Malian surgeons who have been taught in Angers by Mr. De Brux urged their government to fit the Point G hospital with equipment allowing them to treat more than 2 000 children.

The idea of a cooperation between Angers and Bamako in the medical field appeared in 2008. Since, Angers hosts every year Malian heart surgeons to get a specialisation and since 2009, the Jean-Louis De Brux team goes every year to Bamako to treat children for free until 2012. During their last travel to Mali, the Angers surgeons have been welcomed by the Malian health ministry. After Malian surgeons and anaesthetists have been educated in France, the development of the heart surgery in the Point G hospital depends now on up-to-date kits and constant electricity supply.

One of the two soldiers killed in Centrafrica was native of Angers

Antoine Le Quinio (right) 

One of the two French sodiers killed on December 9th in Bangui the Centra-frican capital was native from Angers. Antoine Le Quinio, a 1st class para-trooper born in 1991, was, with others soldiers, patrolling in the city, when, few before mid-night, his detachment was caught under the fire, and himself woun-ded. He died during the following hours as another comrade in arms, Nicolas Vokaer.

Antoine Le Quinio, single and without children,

had entered in a five years commitment in Angers after he got a degree in the mana-gement of automatic production devices. He was killed by militiamen of the former Sekela, a rebel army which demands the departure of the Centrafrican president and of the government. The purpose of the military operation launched by France aims to desarm those rebels. And the two losses took place during a search implemented by French soldiers in Bangui. Antoine Le Quinio and his comrade were transferred to the military hopsital inside the M'Poko airport where they died. Before he was sent to Centrafrica in December 2012, Antoine le Quinio was in Gabon.

Credit pictures : French defense ministry

Those two soldiers are the first killed after the operation Sangaris was decided to restablish order in the country. The French president, François Hollande, in a press release, has sent his condolences to the families and the relatives of the two men and ensured them of the "solidarity of the nation", reminding "that these soliders were there to protect civilians and ensure the delivery of the humanitarian assistance". On his side, the Angers mayor, Frédéric Béatse express his sadness after he learnt that news

The tree symbolizing the separation of religion and policy once again destructed

In the eyes of the Angers mayor, as probably, in those of many other inhabitants, the new act of destruction against the secularism tree, once again planted last saturday, has nothing to do with "simple" vandalism. An oak, Frédéric Béatse put in the ground of Lorraine square on December 7th, has once again been beheaded during the previous night.

The beheaded tree lit by candels

Visibly horrified, Mr. Béatse, who paid tribute to Nelson Mandela in the eponym school of Les Hauts de Saint-Aubin district on December 10th, felt that "there is no doubt about the symbolic will of the perpetrators who lead an anti-republican guerilla from day to day. These people must be convinced that we shall never be impressed by their violence. They must know that I shall once again plant that tree, and so as long as it will be necessary".

The first time the secularism tree was destroyed was just the day after racists insults were pronounced against the justice minister, Christiane Taubira  during a short visit to Angers and the mayor had already said that such act was probably not pure coincidence. And in fact, the second destruction was on the anniversary day of a law getting separated church and state, religion and policy in December 9th 1905. A new tree will be set up there in the days to come, said the mayor warning "the enemies of the republic they will not prevail".

Angers centre store owners turn to the candidates to municipal elections

The members of the Groupement d'entente du commerce get themselves talked about. An essay about the history, the situation and the projects of the Angers down down store owners has been sent to all candidate to the next municipal elections. If the Gec president, Fabien Rebours, acknowledges that the openings of shops two Sundays before Christmas is something "historical and exceptional", nevertheless, that does not solve all the background problems the future city mayor will have to tackle.


According to Mr. Rebours, before the implemen-tation of the first tramway line, there were no relationships between store owners and town hall. For example, that one reminds they never got any information from town hall about the future traffic plan implemented after the completion of the tramway works. The project of a pavement tax in 2012 sparked things off. That one has been given up but car park fares have been increased. So Fabien Rebours wishes a new vision of the down town district from town hall " which considers that if a store vanishes, another arrives, so down town never dies".

But that could be wrong, explains the Gec president, who notices that there are no more fresh food stores in down town. Fisheries, butcher's shops, vegetables stores do not longer exist in town. So Mr. Rebours and the Gec members hope the candidate will read their essay and find in it "ideas to make life more pleasant". And they are sold for free!

Secularism is Ok

Credit Picture : Frédéric Béatse's blog

A tree symbol of secularism has been once again planted in Lorraine square by the Angers mayor Frédéric Béatse after a previous oak set up there for the same purpose had been cut a month ago. That event, simultneous to the racist insults shouted to the justice minister Christian Taubira during her visit to Angers, had been interpreted by local representatives, from both left and right, as a sign of intolerance that has to be tackled.

Because it was impossible to the mayor to warm the hearts of the people gathered in Lorraine square on December 7thbecause of low low temperatures taht morning, he invited them to the nearby town hall where he spoke no as a candidate but as a represen-tative of people not sharing the same religious opinions or even atheists. Having reminded that the city recorded in two weeks "two attacks against republican values [which are] a warning for the representatives", Mr. Béatse pointed out that "secularism allows people to leave peacefully in society, with [their] convictions, as long as they do not impige with the freedom of others" and solemnelly warned that racists and intolerants "were facing a united front".

Frédéric Béatse opens the first of his committee rooms for a campaign "close to districts' expectations"

Consistently with the local urban management he promotes in Angers, Frédéric Béatse, current mayor and candidate for a new term, has started to implement a local electoral campaign by the inauguration of his first committee room in the Belle-Beille district on December 7th. Mr Béatse wants to be as closely as possible to the districts in order to bring in their mind he also wishes to meet inhabitants' wants and needs as closely as possible. That place "is not flashy [but] faithful to our values, close to the districts", he said among supporters who, thereafter, have gone with him to visit some of the inhabitants of Belle-Beille on their doorstep.

Credit picture : Aimer Angers

The mayor-candidate announced that other committee-rooms would be opened in other districts (the next will take place in La Roseraie and a third is planned) as if the strategy was to encircle the core of the town, and Christophe Béchu, his challenger, who set-up there his campaign headquarters a few weeks ago. 

The Belle-Beille district, which has already be redevelopped through a urban renovation policy during the last ten years, is waiting an important change with the arrival of the second tramway line linking its higher education campus to down town. Mr. Béatse is favourable to the construction of an entire new tramway line between Belle-Beille and Monplaisir districts while other candidates said an half-line between Monplaisir and down-town would be more realistic. It is not sure Belle-Beille inhabitants (and students) will agree.

Main banks reconquest : Frédéric Béatse and Christophe Béchu have their respective ways

The future, or no future, of the speedway along the Maine river between the Molière square and the Angers castle appears like one of the most important differences between Frédéric Béatse, current mayor, and Christophe Béchu, his challenger, current president of the Maine-et-Loire general council. Both of them are supporters of a scheme aiming at including the river and its banks in the places Angers inhabitants may go, like in any other one.

Poissonnerie square

The project adopted by the city council plans to maintain an aerial way for car traffic constituted by four lanes (two towards Nantes and two towards Paris) what, according to Mr. Béchu, is absolutely conflicting with the direct access of pedestrians to the Maine banks the two candidates endorse. So Mr. Béchu suggests to set up a plant cover above the speed way "which has been paid and where 20 000 vehicles pass through everyday".

According to Angers city hall, such an option is not technically feasible because the pressure exerted by the Maine river, above all during rises, would be too important for the walls of the speedway buried between Molière and Poissonnière squares. In the project of Mr. Béchu, these would be reunified and would be the place for the junction of the two tramway lines. So the route of the second tramway line is also a major difference between the two candidates in their respective approaches of the Maine bank reconquest.

Laurent Gérault unveils his programme for the Angers retail trade sector in spite of political contingencies

While an alliance inside the centre, between the Angers sec-tions of the Union des démocrates indépendants (Udi) and the Mouve-ment démo-crate (Modem) is far from to be sure, while an agreement of one of these two parties, or both, with the Union pour une majorité populaire candidate, Christophe Béchu, is not yet concluded, Laurent Gérault, the Udi candidate to the next municipal elections, makes public his programme. On December 6th, the issue of his press conference was dedicated to the retail stores. Such a policy would be implemented in four directions : the access to parking lots, the relationship between the city council and the retail store owners, fiscal measures in favour of the latests and new commercial facilities in down town.

Laurent Gérault

 Mr. Gérault plans to dedicate € 3 or 4 millions to a redevelopment of the main Angers squares and a revision of the car park policy with a free first hour and the setting up of parking lots charged minute by minute. The Udi candidate also wants to bring back to public access 300 car parks until now dedicated to representatives or civil servants of Angers town hall or the Conseil général. These facilities had been at the core of a controversy one year ago. Laurent Gérault also wishes a better understanding with Angers store owners. He plans to assign four municipal policemen at their disposal and a toll-free number.

After the stores' managers complained for years about the difficulty to work in down town, the candidate suggests to grant them a reduction of their fiscal pressure, and specifically in favour of the new stores. Finally, two facilities would be set up. The first, a permanent covered food market, would take place in Imbach square where, a long time ago, another one was set up there. The second would be located in the touristic district of La Cité which would host an arts and crafts house. Mr Gérault also introduced one of his future deputy-mayor, Katarzyna Barska-Alibert, lawyer.

The Angers centrists union looks to be a "wearying exercise"

Bernard Dupré

Did the Angers section of the Mouvement démocrate (Modem) choose the good way through an alliance with the candidate of the Union pour une majorité populaire (Ump), Christophe Béchu? And is that choice definitive? It is not sure after the statements of the general secretary of the Modem, Marc Fesneau, about the Angers municipal elections which see one part of the centrists, the Modem, joining Mr. Béchu, while the other part, the Union des démocrates indépendants (Udi), choose behind Laurent Gérault, their Maine-et-Loire delegate, to constitute a list.

Christophe Béchu

"I am looking for a date to come in Angers in order to meet one another. I don't want to give up the idea of a common list" between Udi and Modem, said Mr. Fesneau whose stance looks to be already a disavowal of the decision taken months ago by the Angers Modem town councillors and their leader, Bernard Dupré to join the Ump list. Mr. Fesneau confirmed that the Modem had not yet endorsed the decision of the Angers Modem and explained that in October Mr. Gérault wanted to go with Mr. Béchu, but not without requirements. "But Christophe Béchu slammed the door in Laurent Gérault's face who, by reaction, decided to establish his own list. That's how it happened", reminded Mr. Fesneau.

Laurent Gérault

If a centrist list gathering Udi and Modem were impossible to launch, Marc Fesneau would so propose to Christophe Béchu a negociation. But would that last accept it? In the meantime, the Modem position in Angers has recently been weakened by the choice of local supporters to follow Mr. Gérault's candidacy and not Mr. Béchu. "It is unconsistent not to give a centrist choice to the Angers electorate", wrote two supporters in a press release which points out that "none of the basic principles adopted by the Modem supporters in spring 2013, like the no holding multiple offices, the Maine banks reconquest, the second route of the tramway, the economic issues" are in the programme of the Ump candidate.  For Mr. Fesneau, "such a dispersion wearies us".

Christophe Béchu sentences the Angers jail

Regularly criticized from both left and right Angers representatives because of its poor conditions, the jail located near the botanical garden looks to be sentenced. A few weeks ago, the justice minister, Christiane Taubira, after she received from local decision-makers and lawyers a project about the transfer of the current facility from Angers to Trélazé, answered them that the scheme would be examined... in spite of the severe tensions on the national resources.

Christophe Béchu has just rub in it, with his proposal to convert the jail into a museum dedicated to contemporary art. The idea consists in to tear down the outer wall in order to open the place to the district and to the city. The three wings of the current jail would be redeveloped and dedicated the first to the urban culture, the contemporary music, the second one would host paintings, sculptures and collages while the cells of the third wing would be used as workshops for artists. Mr. Bechu precises that the place would be connected to the second line of the tramway, what predicts an additional change from the route planned by the current majority.

The candidate want to see the jail transferred at Trélazé what would improve the current conditions of detention severely worsened by the over-population of prisoners and the old age of the facility. In a recent press release, the president of Angers Loire Métropole, Jean-Claude Antonini, threatened the Avrillé mayor, Marc Laffineur, former minister, to reveal the reasons why the Angers prison had not been transferred when that one was member of the government.

Angers, just at the pass mark for its involvement against racism

Itinerary of Angers migrants

Economy, qualitity of life, education, among the numerous rankings between cities, the last one which includes Angers is about racism. That survey, realized by the Conseil représentatif des associations noires (Cran), classifies the city at the 18th position out of fifty French towns. "Which cities are in France most involved against racism? Is my city at the cutting edge of progress or, at the opposite, is it the latest one? Does it deserve an AAA or a dunce's cap? What are the good pratices to fight racism? What should be the public policies to implement in cities and estates?" are some of the questions the Cran wants to give answers.

The context should be sensitive for Angers after, a few weeks ago, racist insults were uttered in Angers to Christiane Taubira, justice minister ad the tree of secularism cut down, two events followed by a public demonstration in Angers streets with several candidates to municipal elections. That led the mayor to write her a letter of apology after the case got a national impact, eluding what the city had already implemented towards "diversity promotion, fight against discriminations and for equality" through the Council for the citizenship of foreign Angevins and an exhibilition two years ago about migrants arrived in Angers.

The council of foreign Angevins Credit pictures Angers city

The cities have been ranked on the basis of a question-naire about their internal policies (human resources and training) and their public policies (economy, cuture, education, safety, etc). But the answers of the cities are not the only component of the ranking. Results of surveys led by the Cran are also taken in account (the balancing between these two categories of datas is not detailed). Angers sums up 52 points out of 100 and its note is C. The worst total is 10 (Marseille) and the best 79 (Villeurbanne) while the average is 42. Eighteen towns got the pass mark and Angers is the last.

A few measures are proposed by the Cran : a visible and tangible involvment of the mayors, the appointment of a deputy mayor in charge of discriminations and a better relationship with the associations. In Angers, the mayor will soon plant a new tree as symbol of secularism.

The Angers Cartoons festival on the next weekend at the congress centre

The 15th edition of the Angers Cartoons festival, due to take place on December 7th and 8th in the congress centre will introduce new local authors and should confirm its audience. While 3 000 visitors were recorded last year, that figure should increase because more authors will be present in 2013. According to Nicole Whittington-Thuleau, "half of the attendance comes from the outside of Maine-et-Loire". The event, which is the first of its catagory inside the Pays de la Loire region, has each year a topic.

After "tops of the bill, Etienne Davodeau (Le chien qui louche), Pascal Rabaté or Marc-Antoine Mathieu, there are a lot of talents in Anjou and several will be there this year", adds Mrs. Whittington-Thuleau who lists Erik Juszezak (Dantès, Narvalo, Empire Usa), Luki Bancher (En classe with me), Jean-Gaël Deschard (Bunny) or Benoït du Peloux (Triple Galop, Zoé and Pataclop). About fifty authors will display their works. Exhibitions in the congress center are planned and others decentralized in the Angers castle about La bête de l'Apocalypse, of Lucien Rollin, the Beaucouzé multimedia library about an off-the-wall western and the Higher Schoolof Agriculture with the Lincoln series. Some of these will last until mid December or mid-January

The festival is an idea of the Angers Bd association whose aim is "to promote the cartoons in Maine-et-Loire through a festival which would include Angevine culture". The 2013 festival poster has been drawn by Bernard Vrancken.

Municipal campaign: Laurent Gérault and Jean-Luc Rotureau deploy their means

The candidates to the Angers municipal elections are intensifying their communication. After the main contenders to mayor office, Frédéric Béatse who opened a blog and his supporters a Facebook page, after Christophe Béchu who launched his website and opened a committee room in down town Angers, the outsiders, Laurent Gérault and Jean-Luc Rotureau started to deploy new means.

Laurent Gérault, who recently go the support of some Mou-vement démocrate (Modem) members and of Hervé de Charette, former minister, has just put online a new website "Servir Angers". The list, which had only recently a Facebook page, sets a "positive alternative" and puts forward an "involvement borne by a code of conduct". That one points out that "policy is not a job", so the list makes clear that its members will have responsabilities limited in time and in the number of mandates. Mr. Gerault demands to his running mates to live and pay their taxes in Angers. Changes in the way the city council works are also detailed as well as the vote of inhabitants for projects above € 10 millions. The candidate's programme aims at fighting against "the loss of status of Angers".

Jean-Luc Rotureau has on his side introduced a new mode of campai-gning through a van used as a mobile committee room in order to meet the Ange-vins. The van, decorated with the portait and the name of the candidate, starts his rounds on December 5th and Mr. Rotureau invites inhabitants and store owners to talk with him, what is a way to distance himself  "from candidates who open offices in down town". The districts Jean-Luc Rotureau will visit are listed on his website. Mr. Rotureau indicates he will announce few by few the members of his list between December and January.

An Angers lawyer's complaint followed by Bob Dylan's indictment

Ivan Jurasinovic

The complaint an Angevin lawyer, Ivan Jurasinovic, had registered against the american singer Bob Dylan, has been followed by the indictment of that one by a Paris examining magistrate last november for "insults" and "incitation to racial hatred". The procedure was implemented by Mr Jurasinovic on behalf the Representative Council of Croatian Institutions and Community of France (Rccicf) after Bob Dylan said to the French edition of the Rolling Stone magazine : "If you have Ku Klux Klan in your blood, Blak people may feel it, even today. As the Jews feel nazi blood and Serbs Croatian blood".

In a press release, the Rccicf pointed out that "those words of uncommon violence have deeply shocked Croatian people, in Croatia, in France and all over the world, particularly as a little pacific nation not long ago wounded by the independance war [against Serbia after Yugoslavia collpased]". The indictment of Mr. Dylan, 72 years old, was simultaneous to his reception in the French Légion d'honneur order by France minister of culture, Aurélie Filipetti.

Bob Dylan

The Croatian community expressed that "it was not looking for damages and wishes before everything that Bob Dylan,  for who Croatia has love and respect, apologizes". Mr. Jurasinovic had already got president Stipe Mesic and former Serbian leader Radovan Karadzic' sentences. Croatia is member of the European Union since July 2013 and plans to take the euro as its national currency in 2015.

The opening of a café predicted on Foch boulevard may predict signs of its recovery

During his recent chat with Angers inhabitants on December 2nd, the mayor, Frédéric Béatse, has announced the opening, on Foch Boulevard, of an establishment member of a national chain of cafes. That arrival, after the opening of an hotel at the n°21 of the same way, indicates that few by few, one of the main avenues of Angers is recovering its attractiveness for investors. It is not the only one. Along the Roë street and until the Molière square, new stores or restaurants have just appeared or may do so in the weeks to come. And a few month ago, the Maine-et-Loire general council unveiled the project of a new building with a commercial gallery along the boulevard.

The Foch boulevard was itself severely hit by the successive disappearances of three cinemas, the last one having closed its doors on October 20th what led to debates about the means to revive that way among the candidates to the municipal elections. It is possible that one of the main leverages of that start of recovery be the tramway, now well included by inhabitants for their urban travels. Such an outcome may lead the candidates to confirm their interest to a second line.

Or course, the recovery of Angers trade center is far to be completed and the recent French debate about an enlarge-ment of possibilities for commer-cial openings on Sundays will for sure interfere with the current reflections regarding Angers down town. The construction of a new cinemas complex in Les Ponts-de-Cé, a city close to the south of Angers, which will be of course opened on Sundays(while it was said that L'Atoll, the commercial park located  at the North of the city, was favourable to include a cinema) will make necessary to find new ways to stimulate the recovery which is perhaps starting for Angers down town stores.

The first decrease ot unemployment recorded in Angers and surroundings for months

For the first time for months, and maybe for more than a year, the unemploy-ment rate recorded a decrease of 3% at the end of October in Angers and surroundings while, in Maine-et-Loire, the trend had a more marked orientation with -3.8%. This is the best evolution of all the Pays de la Loire region where the average trend is rather -1.6%. At the national level, the same evolution is noticed : the number of persons having no job at all lowered by 20 500 in October.

If the news is good for Angers and the Maine-et-Loire, its simultaneity with the national figures may indicate that there is no specific reason of such an improvement at the local level. Nevertheless, the arrival of that slight decrease is favourable to the end of year perspectives in consumption, which is itself an indication of the confidence of people for the months to come. As a symbol, several front windows of Angers down town have recently been
purchased and will soon offer new services to the Angers customers. On another side, local companies won a prize for their dynamism. In the construction field, cranes are still present in the urban landscape.This is not sufficient but it nevertheless may indicate the beginning of an economic recovery of the territory. Of course the recent announcement regarding the Ardoisières d'Angers closing wil not interfere favourably with statistics and the Angers region is far from to be released from the unemployment.


Statistics at local level do not disclose which categories of jobless people benefit from the trend. Until today, young people were the most severly hit by unemployement. The quality of education regularly awarded to Angers should trigger such an evolution. But that one is not yet confirmed. [Credit pictures : Angers city, Wikipedia]

The openness about openings on two Sundays before Christmas now implemented

Their success looks pale under the illuminations of Angers down town streets for the weeks to come. The little poster appears here and there on the entrances of stores.  The sentence "I am opened the Sundays before Christmas" is just above two dates : December 15th, December 22th both of them marked with a cross. If, apparently, the poster is not visible on all the front windows, it is sure that the experience some of them will attempt until the end of the year will be studied and, if successful, be enlarged.


After the territorial authorities passed a regulation which prevented store owners to open their shops the last Sundays of the year, the Groupement d'entente du commerce led a petition in order to get that possibility, pointing out the difficulties caused by the works of the tramway and the increase of car parks fares (for their customers and their employees) with, in the background, the competition of the commercial centres.

A clear openness was visible from the Angers town council with the arrival of the new mayor, Frédéric Béatse, himself having said that, about that topic, he would not be "dogmatic". So a move has been done and the store owners considered it as "historical". The operation "Suns of winter", which was inaugurated that weekend, attacted a lot of people. The increase of the attendance led to an increase of the number of wooden huts what proves that for many Angers housholds to go for shopping on Sundays is also a family pastime.