La Manche is one of the eleven French departments which has more cows than inhabitants.
It is even the one where the gap between these two “populations” is the greatest.
According to statistics from INSEE, there are no less than 744,000 cows there, while there are "only" 493,000 inhabitants!
With population growth and urban development on the one hand, and the decline in the number of farms on the other, these once-common differences may seem much more surprising today.
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However, we discover that these data are fairly stable over time… “In recent years, the human population of the Channel has not decreased.
As for the livestock, it remains very important.
Remember that this department is one of the epicenters of the production of dairy products in France, in particular cream and butter”, explains Camille Hurard, in charge of studies at INSEE in Normandy.
A highly developed industry
Cows are always ubiquitous at every turn of a secondary country road.
What has changed is that they are no longer surrounded by as many dwellings or as many farms.
Women and men, still as numerous, have deserted them to go and live in town.
Moreover, this INSEE statistic which seems, almost in the form of a joke, to assimilate the department to a strictly agricultural territory is in fact a trompe-l'oeil.
The reality is much more complex.
“This department is paradoxically not representative of rurality in France.
The industry is highly developed and the unemployment rate is even one of the lowest in France, since it does not reach 6%.
Many sectors are in constant search of labor.
We are therefore very far from an entire department focused on its cows, ”concludes Camille Hurard.