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]

Access to stores on Sundays : the floor given to Angers consumers may predict a change of mind

News analysis. - Did the opinions, regarding the issue of Sundays as no working days, started to change from an adamant refusal to an open mindedness? May be it is the case with the daily Le Courrier de l'Ouest which, for the first time since the uprising of the conflict due to the opening of the Saint-Jean-de-Linières Leclerc superstore on Sunday mornings, gave the floor to the consumers. The daily even admitted in the front page of its Monday edition that the petition distributed by trade unions to consumers "has sparked off a real debate".

Up to now, the presentation of the problem was in favour of the prohibition with classical and political arguments without recognition of the daily life of working people and the economic advantages for employees, the store and the public, to be able to go for shopping on Sunday mornings. But another news erupted the following day in the same newspaper could explain such an evolution. 

In its edition of Tuesday, the same Courrier de l'Ouest announced : "the unemployment soars in Anjou". That fact which could trigger the issue to be reconsidered  :  +4.5% since January and even +7.5% from October 2010 to October 2011! If the economic growth is always curbed how will unemployment decrease and how will the Angers inhabitants live?

The Adam House on the eve of Christmas

It is one of the most famous monuments of Angers : the Adam House. Built about 1500, this hal-timbered house is a rare specimen of the medieval architecture with its richness of carved beams displaying religious or secular sculptures. The Adam House is also one of the most inappropriate store window in town : washed out modern paintings, statuette signed Niki de Saint Phalle or tropical animals in mosaic look totally disoriented in such an historical atmosphere.

 
The objects are displayed in a modern fitting while the inner architecture of the Adam House gives off history, subdued lightings, warm colors. Where are the tapestries depicting scenes of the medieval or of the golden age of France's Ancient Regime? Where are the tokens of the crafts (furnitures, carpets, etc) today considered as arts? Not a single reference to past in that inheritage of history. Only objects of daily consumption : ties, mugs and so on. There is no special design for Christmas.


This doesn't enhance the style of the Adam House, in addition emphasized in this historical district of Angers. Even at night, the harsh lighting of the store window harms the shadows and the patterns of the front side, burying the past in the sunlights of today.

Angers Saint-Martin fun fair 2001 closed down on Sunday

The Saint Martin fun fair 2011 edition has closed on Sunday. While some onlookers embarked in the last attractions still opened, the fairground people had already started to dismantle their merry-go-round, glass labyrinth or shut the panels of their display vehicles. One of the most surprising component of the fair was... the temperature. After 9 pm, it was 15° in the soaked alleys full of smells of candy. 

According to Angers newspapers, the commercial result of the fun fair is uncertain. If the new trolley line has brought thousands of inhabitants, it's not sure that all of them have paid more money than previous year : all the visitors are not customers. If the Saint-Martin had traditionnal merry-go-round, shooting galleries, bumper cars and "true New York hamburger" (for men and women apparently concerned by excess weight), the 2011 edition had its technical attractions for thrill-seekers catapulted in space till "5 G"!

The enticing voices of female stallkeepers trying to lure the last families was covered by the noises of metallic wrenches closing down the entertainments. On the following morning, the La Rochefoucauld square will find again its (free) parking lot atmosphere.

UK in Angers through pub in city

One of the most anglicized faces of Angers is its pubs. Since a few years, several opened in downtown, at least on left side of Maine river. The Matt Murphys along Foch boulevard, The James Joyce in front of the Angers congress center, or more discreet, the Donald's pub , the Inishmore, located in Boisnet, Bressigny streets are among the most frequented all year long even if their Anglo-Saxon atmosphere is more obvious as winter goes along with its dampness and, these days, its fog. 

Along with that fashion, consumers are changing their habits. While, formerly, French people used to have a drink inside the pubs, now, in part because of the smoking prohibition in public places, these customers spend their evenings on the front side of the pubs, sometimes playing quoits on the pavement.

 Another resemblance with the pubs over the Channel is their habits to inform their customers of major sports events like the last world rugby cup. Of course the music inside is, like everywhere in Angers, Anglo-American, what adds to the change of scene. It looks like if, in that pubs, people didn't only want to drink a Irish, Scotish, Welsh or British beer but be a part of UK, even if the inhabitants of this country are in love with the Anjou wine.

Letter from the editor

Dear Anonymous,
Thanks for your comment on "Angers bike lanes bitten by cars". Yes, traffic wardens should be off duty on Sunday.
Warmest regards.
Edgar.

A new radar speed in Victor Chatenay avenue, designed to be profitable instead of educational

The educational radar in front of Ouest Gravure

The straight Victor Chatenay avenue has been provided with a radar speed last Thursday on the right side of the street from Angers toward the outside after the Sept Sonnettes crossroads. The equipment set up in front of the Habitat Plus headquater is not signposted but only preceded by an educational radar located in front of the Ouest Gravure company. Henceforth, vehicles on that way will not have to exceed 50 km/h. These devices were announced in Maine-et-Loire in June 2012 and the prefecture plans to set up around 30 radars speed. 

The speed radar in front of Habitat Plus

Much more questionable is the simultaneous removal of board signs warning motorists about a speed control when a classical radar speed is replaced by an educational radar. The problem is the new radar is (voluntarily) wrongly located. Instead of a set up  before the Sept Sonnettes crossroads where the straight avenue is a genuine racetrack for motorcyclists or even drivers needing thrills, the speed radar is in a section where traffic lights prevent excessive speeds.

Unfortunately, this could not prevent speed controls for people coming toward Angers downtown on working day mornings. It would have been more logical to put it in that direction because it's in town the speed limit is justified. Was it justified to put it on a section located at 100 m of the boundary of Angers city?

In Angers bike traffic increases, and bickering with pedestrians too

The traffic by bikes has increased along the years and, because of the soaring of gas, will probably continue to do so. If Angers city, as well as the surroundings towns and villages, have set up a grid of cyclables lanes, the users of bikes don't take, till now, good habits regarding the other users of public ways. Of course, bikers are more vulnerable than drivers of cars, lorries and even buses, but pedestrians are themselves more vulnerable than bikers and these last quite often forget it.

Because to the lack of cyclables lanes in Angers downtown, bikers use the pedestrian streets and even pavements which are not dedicated to them. The result is the pedestrians don't feel safe, especially during winter mornings and evenings when day light is scarce. Believing they are seen by pedestrian, the bikers are sometimes driving a little bit fast and accidents may occur with elder persons who are unaware of the dangers.

With the increase in the years to come of the traffic by bikes, Angers town hall could reconsider the design of its cyclable lanes because cars, and even Irigo company buses' drivers, don't respect the regulations in favour of bikers. Quite often, and not always because of simple neglect, they close the distance between their vehicles and the pavements, a behaviour which can lead to accidents and injuries. One of the solution could consist in designing separate lanes for bikers with their own traffic lights and their own regulations. But it could be costly.

Bernadette Caillard-Humeau on the La Rochefoucauld parking way

Her strategy is quite difficult to understand. After she announced, on the first days of October, that the La Rochefoucauld parking lot would not be free next year, Bernadette Caillard-Humeau, first deputy mayor of Angers was relieved of a part of her authorities by the mayor himself, Jean-Claude Antonini. In an interview published recently she admitted a few days ago that "it was a mistake in communication from upstream and in downstream. The talks [about this issue] were not completely finished" adding that at that time, "For me, the chapter was over".

Was it sure? In the same interview, Mrs Caillard-Humeau pointed out that the withdrawal, by the mayor, of her different authorities, was "anyway a political act". This new accusation infuriated the mayor who, consistently, withdrew a second time the powers she still had.

The fact his former allies choose recently to disown the first deputy mayor and put the emphasis on the "personal dimension" of the sanction could mean that her personality didn't let town hall members indifferent. At the very beginning of her mandate at Angers municipal council, Mrs Caillard-Humeau  demanded "a sunny office"... And what for the others?

Suns of winter at Angers' heart

Few by few, components of the event "Suns of winter" are arriving in Angers down town. After Christmas and New Year illuminations were set up in the streets, it was the turn of the wooden huts to take place in the streets and squares around the Angers centre. On the occasion of its 2011 edition, Angers town hall wanted it more traditional. But, the city chose, for the first time, to deal it with a private company instead of the shopkeepers association.

This change displays the will of the municipal team to use the Christmas and New Year periods to make the Angers down town, the first commercial centre of the territory, more attractive. And this year a good idea has taken place with the openings of stores for shopping till 9 pm on Saturday 3 and Friday 9, 16 and 23 December. In order to stimulate the attractiveness of the place, all the parking lots of Angers down town will be free as trolley and buses for all persons coming there with an Irigo subscriber. 

 
After years of works on the first trolley line which hampered the business of Angers down town retail stores, it was fair to help them recovering turnover. Aside this, the event will not forget Angers inhabitants weakened by the economic slowdown. Actions aiming at giving them parcels in spite of their scares resources will take place, making of the event a real sun in the winter of life.

Angers bike's lanes bitten by cars

In the field of urban trips, Angers town hall has implemented, since a long time, a policy designed to increase the use of bike within its territorial limits. If the set-up of specific lanes, traffic lights or bike hoops are the necessary components of that policy, these are not, perhaps, sufficient. The municipal will to get the bikers' rights observed could go through the sanction of individuals who hold up its policy and the traffic by bike.

On Sunday November 20th near the numerous merry-go-round of the Saint-Martin fun fair, it was really difficult to park one's car because the place was overcrowded. Some unscrupulous individuals choose, nevertheless, to use the bike's lanes as parking lots. If, possibly, the owners of these cars do not live in Angers, possibly the users of these lanes are city's inhabitants. Why, in presence of such obvious offenses, Angers town hall didn't react?


In some cases, Angers city, thanks to zealous female traffic wardens, has been much more inflexible with elder drivers having just to park (in Chevreul street) their car for unloading luggage for a while... On Sunday, the city was obviously unwilling to get the bikers' rights observed. Angers town hall looks eager to promote its own bike paying facility, VéloCité+ (with the very benevolent help of a daily newspaper), but it should have in mind its customers do not represent all the bikers of the city and the "cultural change" it waits will not come so easily.

The Angers trade unions finally absent in Leclerc superstore

After they warned the Leclerc superstore of Saint-Jean-de-Linières and its customers of their intention to block its accesses in case of an opening on Sunday morning, the Angers trade-unions' militants were, finally, absent. Apparently their message was even not listened by inhabitants of the neighbouring went at the parking lot and the departments of the store as they did on previous Sundays.

One of the questions raised by this absence is why these leaders didn't come? Maybe the answer lays in a recent awareness that, on that day, many businesses, and not only in the food field, are running : garden centres like Jardiland or Truffaut, not far from the Leclerc superstore, were active, while in the food chain, all the Carrefour Market and of course the very popular open-air market of the Monplaisir district (on street spaces rented by the city of Angers) was as attended as usual.

In fact, it seems difficult for these trade union leaders (and for the Angers Loire Métropole representatives who launched an appeal to the prefect) to justify the right of work for some and to prohibit it for others. Moreover, how to stop customers to purchase and who is authorized to tell them what they have to do or not to do during Sundays. The Angers trade unions leaders didn't venture to do so on Sunday because they don't work on that day.