Sccording to INSEE, rural areas refer to “all sparsely populated or very sparsely populated municipalities” and bring together 88% of municipalities and 33% of the French population. In comparison, and according to the same study, 28% of European Union citizens lived in rural areas in 2015.
Should we deduce that France is a rural country? Historically, yes. Long associated with the peasant world (from the Latin farming“from the village, from the canton”), rurality concerned 78% of the French population and provided a living from agriculture for nearly 67% of French people in 1789. At the time, however, it was no more than the other country of the world, this “huge peasantry” in the words of historian Fernand Braudel.
Today, if this link between rurality and agriculture is less and less true – in 1968 already, only 42% of the rural population lived from agriculture –, the postulate of a specifically rural France is just as true. And this, despite the assertions of certain political leaders of whom such a vision, in addition to forgetting that two-thirds of the French population live in an urban unit, has the double defect of not apprehending rurality in its diversity and of make it a myth when its issues require concrete answers.
Issues specific to each space
Indeed, it is preferable to speak of ruralities. This is why INSEE distinguishes four categories of rural areas that shape a France “suburban” – with its municipalities under strong influence and under weak influence of an employment center – and « hyper-rurale » – with its sparse and very sparsely populated autonomous municipalities.
However, each of these categories faces its own challenges. If only in terms of employment, transport, access to health or digital coverage, the rate of which varies according to their distance from the places of attraction that are metropolises and large cities, and their geography – mountain, plain or coastline.
Rurality is therefore not a block. Nor can it be a myth. Far from the image of an “eternal France” structured by its steeples, its landscapes and its sweetness of life, it is also a space of constraints which requires concrete responses adapted to its diverse realities. Among these measures, some are primarily the responsibility of the State. From a financial point of view, grants aimed at supporting investment in local projects, in addition to being made permanent, must be more legible.
The need for real reform
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