through scrap recycling, mutual help, swapping, buying local. “We organise our life to live better and cheaper,” he says, “by respecting the environment as much as possible. Manu and his family are completely off the electric grid: they have solar hot water, photovoltaic cells and cook on either gas or a solar cooker. Every load of laundry is a principled exercise against France’s nuclear policy and the cost of electricity. Next to him, Manu showcases his pedal-powered washing machine, built following internet instructions. Today, it is grinding his dried chestnuts, at the anecdotal rate of one saucepan a minute. Cédric and Glenn’s “poly-tool” is a car seat welded on to a metal sheet in front of an old bike its weighted back wheel turns a belt that drives anything you fancy.
There are demonstrations of plant-based wastewater purification systems, wool carding, and a botanical walk to identify wild food.Īmong the ingenious homemade inventions to save time, labour and fossil fuels, the pedal bike and washing machine feature a lot. The food is pay-what-you-like and vegetarian.Īround the edge of the recently mown field are stalls with signs announcing “build your own wind turbine” and “PostIndustry presents. An acoustic band constantly fluctuating in size plays traditional chansons. The néos have gathered to chat, eat and drink at long tables in the shade of a large walnut tree. The néos have diverse social backgrounds, but many shared principles, including organic agriculture. There is a clear, though not necessarily pejorative, distinction in the Cévennes mountains between Cévenols born and bred and néos (whether newly arrived or relatively long established).
Dozens of locals have come with their children to a smallholding by the banks of the Gardon for a yearly gathering of Nature & Progrès, the organic certification body and environmental lobby group.
It is noon on the first day of the French summer holidays in the Lozère.
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