In Blangy-le-Château (Calvados).
“Are you a Jehovah’s Witness?”
, shouts from the garage of his house a man with a wary look, his hands coated with cement.
His face relaxes when he learns that Yves Laurelli, red scarf carelessly wrapped around his neck and black bag in his hand, is only the enumerator of Blangy-le-Château, a village in Pays d'Auge in Calvados, halfway between Lisieux and Deauville.
On the counter, 728 inhabitants.
“Madame has been informed that I must pass
,” says the latter with a broad smile that enhances his round glasses.
The portal opens.
Jessica, 34, escorted by a beige Labrador, invites the talkative visitor to sit in the living room.
This year, some French municipalities with less than 10,000 inhabitants are affected by the census.
The latter must comply with it every five years, unlike more populated cities where the operation is annual.
The survey, conducted by INSEE in partnership with communities, takes place from January 18 to February 17.
It targets five million homes and nine million people.
To be counted, residents must complete a questionnaire prepared by the National Institute of Statistics.
Responding to it is mandatory, takes little time - around 10 minutes - and is done on a declarative basis.
Residents can do this online using codes distributed in advance to their mailbox or request that a census taker come to their home.
To help local residents as best as possible, the Blangy-le-Château town hall has set up hotlines three times a week.
At the last census, in 2020, 35% of Castelblange residents were 60 years old or over.
State subsidies to municipalities depend on the census
There is no Internet in the house where Jessica and her partner have lived since 2011.
“We don't have anything to connect to fiber
,” she whispers, criticizing the mayor's incompetence.
And it’s not practical to do the census on my phone.”
Yves takes out his computer, activates a connection sharing, and starts the questionnaire: around twenty questions, first very general (how many habitable rooms? how do you heat yourself? what links between the occupants?), before being targeted at residents (place of birth, studies, profession, etc.).
The friendly mother is a housewife.
She takes care of her “multidys” children on a daily basis, suffering from several cognitive disorders, and benefits from the Daily Parental Presence Allowance (AJPP).
Recently, she refused a teleworking secretary position... due to lack of network.
Her partner, 36 years old, is a mason.
If Jessica finds the questions
“really stupid”,
there is (almost) nothing more serious for the municipalities than the census.
“The subsidies that the State gives us for our operation depend on it
,” explains Dorian Coge, mayor without the
“but right-wing”
label elected in 2020, who receives in his office, Monday January 22.
One of the projects is to transform the village hall into a multi-activity space.
“But it will depend on the aid
,” admits the councilor.
“We were losing residents five years ago, but since then, the curve has increased to four to ten people per year, particularly young Parisians
,” he explains.
For three years, there have been seven more students at the school... Blangy is a mix of rurality and dynamism.”
Dorian Coge is hopeful: the town could cross the bar of 800 inhabitants.
“For some, it’s an honor to tell their story”
Barely leaving the town hall, Yves lights a cigarillo and walks up the Grande Rue to go to the residence for the elderly, Les Douets, named after the stream that crosses the town.
The artery, lined with half-timbered houses, is the beating heart of the village.
Shops - a bakery, a tobacco bar, a hairdressing salon, a grocery store, etc. - are concentrated there.
the Grande Rue of Blangy-le-Château (Calvados).
Victor Mérat / Le Figaro
Pierre, 87, opens the door to his apartment.
He turns off his large television tuned to CNews and invites Yves to his living room table.
“I don’t have internet here, and I don’t know anything about it.
And then, getting registered helps pass the time
,” jokes the octogenarian with a bald head.
The connection does not work.
Yves and Pierre must go down to the noisy reception hall of the establishment.
The retiree, a widower for six years, was born in Yvetot, in Seine-Maritime.
His studies consisted of a CAP in carpentry which he did not obtain.
“I worked for a long time as a caravan fitout carpenter.
When the factory closed, I became a tobacconist
,” he says.
“Are you looking for work?”
, the census taker wisely asks.
Pierre laughs:
“No!
I would be declared crazy.”
In her office, Sophie Avril, the affable manager of the place, affirms:
“It is necessary for an agent to come.
Otherwise, it would be up to us to do it, and we already have a lot of work... And above all, it allows them to have contact.
For some, it’s even an honor to tell their story.”
“The sites in France are too complicated”
Yves, who describes himself as
“a scribe”
, rings the bell at a final house.
Michèle, 73, and Jean-Paul, 77, entertain in their living room where the wooden beams on the ceiling accompany floral wallpaper on the walls.
The series
Inspector Barnaby
is broadcast on television.
“We know it by heart
,” Michèle points out, turning off the set.
Two rifles hang above a door.
A package of madeleines is open on the table.
The couple called on Yves,
“because the sites in France are too complicated”
,
“a nightmare”
.
A lifelong Castelblange resident - Jean-Paul's great-grandfather already lived in the village - they recount
"the Blangy of the 1950s"
,
"when there was a full-time butcher's shop, three grocery stores and four bistros"
.
She, Franco-American, was an English speaker in primary schools before becoming manager of the local library.
He, wearing a Robert Hue style beard, was a racehorse breeder.
On the way back to the town, a car suddenly stops in the middle of the road.
A retiree opens the door:
“Could you come to our house?”
Request accepted.