“All my childhood, in Forcalquier, my village in the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence, I did the four hundred strokes. I could have killed myself a thousand times, but it has also allowed me to build a relationship to life where I don’t feel the need to be constantly protected or secure. My parents were not irresponsible: they trusted me, it gave me perspective and a sense of responsibility. I sometimes talk about it with friends who dream of a change of life, of leaving the city or their job, but who are attached, held back by fear and the need for a secure life.
“The constant search for consistency sometimes leads to a lack of tolerance, and you should not flog yourself for having bought three industrial products. “
So I grew up free, near a vegetable garden with rather green parents – the first to say that you shouldn’t throw papers on the ground, but who nevertheless sprayed Roundup in the alley … It was he. Twenty years ago, we were not yet aware of the toxicity of these products. There was also a certain paradox in eating the good organic vegetables from the garden, accompanying them with Lesieur mayonnaise and then gorging on Kinder Bueno.
Today, my mother no longer sets foot in the supermarket, but these contradictions are also those of a changing world. The constant search for consistency sometimes leads to a lack of tolerance, and you should not flog yourself for having bought three industrial products. Today we question the practices of our parents, and tomorrow ours will be questioned by our children – we who speak “organic”, “sustainable”, “peasant seeds” but who continue to travel by car and by car. plane.
After my golden childhood in the countryside, I did a prep maths sup and maths special in Marseille, then an engineering school in Lyon, and I discovered what the job market and the capitalist system meant. I even worked for a time at EDF, in the nuclear industry: I joined knowing that I was anti-nuclear, I came out knowing why I was.
In the beginning is the seed
I met my wife, Marine, in a Discosoupe [fête participative antigaspi], we moved in together and planted a vegetable garden. This quickly led us to wonder about seeds and where they come from: it all starts with the seed, but we rarely think about it.
We set off (by bike) in search of agricultural and nourishing alternatives, and we arrived in the small village of Ceriana, in Liguria (Italy). We did some olive picking, discovered a hut among fig and lemon trees, and decided to live there. Since then, I have been making olive oil, and I have participated in the creation of the Maison des seeds paysannes maralpines, to save the seeds of the region.
Zucchini flower fritters, for me, that sums up the know-how essential to safeguarding biodiversity and humanity: it’s a delicious dish, necessarily local (flowers do not travel well), very seasonal, waste-resistant. (because we do not throw anything), which also speaks of peasant varieties, local breeds of sheep (which we make the bush) and chickpeas, the food of tomorrow. “