Posted Oct 3, 2022, 4:11 PMUpdated Oct 3, 2022, 5:34 PM
About the. The province is making a comeback! In the match that has long opposed Paris, the province takes its revenge. In any case, this is the thesis defended by Jérôme Batout in his latest book. It is true that thanks to successive confinements, many Parisians have tasted the charm of provincial life, not for a simple weekend, but to live there permanently and settle there. Haven’t real estate prices in the regions soared with the Covid-19 epidemic?
The interest. Beyond this observation, already known and well documented, the interest of the book is to return to the conflicting history which has both united and divided France through the rivalry between Paris and the provinces. The rivalry is old since it goes back at least to the Ancien Régime, but what Jérôme Batout tells us is that the contempt of Parisians for the Province, which transpires as much in the plays of Molière as in the writings of Mauriac (himself very Bordeaux), is a false contempt, or rather a cultural opposition both very marked and healthy for the balance of the country. Throughout the last three centuries, Parisians make fun of the provincials, knowing that Paris without its provinces is nothing. Economic dependence – factories, agriculture – is such that the capital would slowly die if it were not supplied by the province. Everything changed with the 1990s and the rise of globalization. Until the new deal that we live today.
The quote. “The frontal, simple, organized, civilized, dramatized opposition between Paris and the provinces saved the country from a deep political and territorial division”.
“Revenge of the Province”
by Jérôme Batout. Editions Gallimard, coll. “The Debate”, September 2022, 128 pages, 12 euros.
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