The OIRCT collective (International Observatory for the Reinstallation of Telephone Booths) relaunched the machine in a park in Grenoble on March 25… And is campaigning to say “stop the digitization of our lives”.
It was in Parc Marliave, a well-known green space in the Isère city, that a wooden telephone box emerged, not quite like those that France has known, but perfectly functional.
The International Observatory for the reinstallation of telephone booths is behind this gesture, which is more political than nostalgic. The project: to reinstall 22 of them, in a city that once had 400.
To live “wireless to the paw”
The collective, founded in the spring of 2021, is campaigning ardently for the return of this type of service: “the wish to see cabins in the streets again a fight for freedom”, even specifies their website.
“Freedom of not having a cell phone. Freedom not to be constantly tracked, calculated, evaluated, flashcoded, QR-coded.”
L’#Oirctwhich wants the reinstallation of public telephone booths, reinstalled a permanent one on Friday in #Grenoble. It’s quite a fun concept. But it will be necessary to change the definition of universal service to be able to cover the whole of Francehttps://t.co/Bd18jdSRhX
— Baptiste Hugot (@BaptisteHugot) March 28, 2022
“All digital leaves a lot of people on the side of the road,” said one of the founders of the OIRCT, Vincent Peyret, to Parisian.
“This complicates access to public services or aid.” The phone booth would be “a symbol”, to “claim a right to live without a smartphone, without a cord”.
In their wooden cabin, the call is free. And the gesture is intended to be militant, especially in Grenoble, considered as “the French Silicon Valley”, assures Vincent Peyret. The project will only cost 74 euros.
Telephone booths, which appeared at the end of the 19th century in France, declined with the appearance of the mobile phone. At the end of 2017, they are gradually disappearing. In 2020, there were only 26 left on the territory.