KEY POINTS:
Ouroux-en-morvan - "Octave Renault, Tel 10," reads the painted sign in large green italics. The two-digit number speaks eloquently of the days when Octaves restaurant, by proudly advertising its new-fangled phone, showed it was the trendy place to be in this corner of Burgundy.
But now the old
restaurant is empty, as are many shops and homes in this village. At the T-junction in the village centre, the traffic lights are dark, long ago turned off for lack of need. Struck by demographic cancer, Ouroux is slowly dying.
With pretty, stone houses and black slate roofs, nestling in thickly forested hills in one of France's lushest regions just a few hours southeast of Paris, Ouroux seems a strange candidate for decline.
But Burgundy's rich image belies a dual identity. In its east are fertile plains, world-renowned vineyards and access to the TGV express train network.
In its west, in the mountains of the Morvan, Ouroux and other villages are isolated, barely registering on the tourist radar except to hikers and mountainbikers. The mechanisation of farming and the exodus of youngsters to the cities sound a drumbeat of retreat.
In 1962, Ouroux counted 1124 souls; in 1990, 855; today, just 675. Its only school is closing one of its classes, the post office opens only in the mornings and its last newspaper shop has closed.
Ouroux' high point this year came on June 14, when Mayor Patrice Joly - Octave Renault's grandson-in-law - inaugurated an automated petrol pump.
Eight kilometres away, Montsauche shows its glory days like a tired old boxer reveals ancient scars. Shuttered and for sale, the Hotel Moderne and the Hotel Ville de Pantin - Pantin is a working-class suburb of Paris - exhale folk memories of 1936, when France introduced paid leave and Parisians flocked to the mountain lakes. Today, cheap package holidays with guaranteed sun and sandy beaches have drained Montsauche's lifeblood.
It is hard to understate the concern that rural decline stirs in France.
Neighbouring Britain and Germany became industrialised 150 to 200 years ago. Today, 95 per cent of their populations are urban and most are several generations removed from rural life.
In France, though, industrialisation came much later. Today, 18 per cent of French people live in the country, and many city dwellers have rural relatives or second homes in the country. The countryside features prominently in French education, with holiday camps and visits to farms and museums of rural traditions. Rustic images are burnished in advertising and in Paris a powerful lobby ensures that farming interests are heard.
All this explains why France has been struggling against the odds to stem rural depopulation. Since the early 1970s, the agricultural labour force has shrunk by 60 per cent.
Fifty years ago there were 2.3 million farms in France. By 1995 that had fallen to 735,000 and at the end of 2003 there were fewer than 600,000.
Four years ago, figures showed that after decades of decline the countryside was at last gaining in population. But few are interested in farming. Most newcomers are retired people, holiday-home owners, employees of agribusiness companies, or those who want to set up a shop or B&B.
The demographic upturn has chiefly benefited Languedoc, Provence and Cote d'Azur in the south, Normandy in the north and the Atlantic coast, leaving France's big centre untouched.
"People are leaving the cities to get away from the noise and pollution, but they go for the Languedoc region and Provence because there is a good climate and the Mediterranean, and they go to places with good transport connections and services," says Severine Belone of Notre Village, a network that provides rural relocation advice for 5000 villages.
"It's different in regions like the Limousin, Burgundy and Correze, which are the rural centre of France. It is isolated, the climate is different and there are problems with hospitals, doctors and schools."
Government efforts to stem decline have followed two lines of attack. One is to pump money into roads and telecommunications and maintain key services such as the gendarmerie, postal service and schools.
The other is to encourage farmers and their families to stay on the land, mainly through handouts under the European Union's Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) to support commodity prices, or even pay farmers to take land out of production.
Despite its rotten image overseas as an incentive for waste and sloth, the CAP has failed to stem the fall in rural incomes, which have eroded by some 10 per cent over the past decade, says INSEE, the French statistics agency.
Reforms of the CAP are now gathering pace, with far-reaching impacts on declining rural regions.
Last month, the EU said it would allot €10.8 billion ($21.6 billion) for rural development in France over the next six years. But support for farmers will be mainly for those who grow food that is economically viable and organic.
EU funds are also being ploughed into encouraging eco-tourism. In the village of Chaumard, just south of Ouroux, the schoolhouse is being converted into holiday apartments and a trekkers hostel. Brussels is meeting nearly half the €290,000 cost. But can such tactics work? In Ouroux, an elderly farmer complains about the switch to organics. He has to sign a five-year commitment and meet demanding ecological standards, which he considers too big a leap of faith in an uncertain market.
And adding visitors' beds may only heighten chronic over-capacit. Across from Octave Renault's old restaurant, a small hotel, carefully renovated, is up for sale before it has even opened.
Scratch Ouroux's inviting exterior, and the village seems set for a future of greying heads and loneliness.
"For the real farming people in the real countryside the problems are enormous," says Bernard Bachman of the National Museum for Arts and Traditions. "There is an idea of countryside life that is totally imaginary, a paradise where there are no arguments, good cheese and fresh milk. But that image doesn't fit with the reality."
RURAL RETREAT
* 50 years ago there were 2.3 million farms in France
* There were less than 600,000 farms by 2007
* 18 per cent of French people live in the country
* The agricultural labour force has shrunk by 60 per cent since the 1970.
* Rural incomes have fallen 10 per cent over the past decade
