ReportageIn Mont-Dol, in Ille-et-Vilaine, a machine replaced the baker, who was the last food store in the town. The installation in the countryside of these machines, also sometimes offering fruits and vegetables, has increased with the pandemic.
As every morning, in the square next to the town hall, the same smell of hot bread invades the atmosphere. Shortly before his big departure, the 1er April, Nicolas Lattay welcomes the inhabitants of Mont-Dol (Ille-et-Vilaine) on this day in his non-itinerant bakery truck. For two years, the shy baker with the imposing build had taken his habits in the Breton village of 1,100 souls 25 kilometers from Saint-Malo, where he grew up.
“My desire, in the long term, was to settle in a room, says the 26-year-old craftsman. The town hall and I couldn’t find anything in Mont-Dol, so I moved to Trans-la-Forêt, 15 kilometers from here. ” The offer offered by the municipality – a completely renovated shop – was too tempting not to take advantage of it. Result: Mont-Dol, where this bakery was left without a food store. The town hall therefore opted for the solution of last resort: the installation of an automatic bread distributor that Nicolas Lattay will fill every day.
It is already there, installed only a few meters from the truck: a brand new red machine, a little larger than a telephone booth. Above, we can read “Le Distrib“ Pain ” “. “It made people talk, that’s for sure, but it’s still very practical”, argues the mayor, Marie-Elisabeth Solier, in her office. Purchased 17,000 euros, the machine with forty compartments will be rented 100 euros each month to the baker. An absurdity according to the elected official of the opposition Pascale Chatton: “We were campaigning to create a cooperative place in the town, and with this machine we lose all the conviviality. ”
In front of the bakery on wheels, which is living its last days, fatalism prevails. “I have lived here for ten years and I see the shops going, regret Martine, 50, a wand in one hand and her dog’s leash in the other. It is the death of small villages, because we cannot discuss with a machine. “
Jean and Thérèse, in their seventies for the weekend, are resigned: “We come to the bakery for contact, but it is better to have a distributor than nothing at all. “ To tell the truth, while walking around the village, devices of the same ilk are swarming everywhere. In Roz-Landrieux, Lillemer, Saint-Hélen or La Vicomté-sur-Rance, baguette distributors have emerged. On the Saint-Méloir-des-Ondes side, there are self-service fruits and vegetables, pizzas and even oysters that we find!
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