“You’ll never guess where I’m calling you from!” “In the Marliave park, in Grenoble (Isère), Paul makes a phone call to a friend thanks to… a telephone booth. It is made of wood, tinkered, but works perfectly. “It takes me back to my high school years,” smiles the fifty-year-old, combined with the old screwed on the ear. Its inauguration took place with great fanfare in front of around fifty onlookers, this Friday, March 25, at the instigation of the International Observatory for the Reinstallation of Telephone Booths (OIRCT).
“A world first”, says, not without humor, the collective imagined by the local satirical newspaper Le Postillon. He calls for the reinstallation of 22 cabins in Grenoble, which had 400 before the advent of the laptop. “It’s both a joke and very serious,” says Vincent Peyret, one of its founders.
“We are neither nostalgic nor for the return of the minitel. The phone booth is a symbol to say stop to the digitization of our lives, to claim the right to live without a smartphone, without a cord. The message is all the stronger in Grenoble, presented as the French Silicon Valley. All digital also leaves many people on the side of the road, complicates access to public services or aid. »
Children circle around an ephemeral colorful cabin: “What is this thing? Why did we lock ourselves in to phone before? they wonder. A little further on is the cabin, which is intended to be permanent, with a “Public telephone” sign. The phone call is free. Fleur, 7, tests the device and joins her mother, telling her where she is. “It’s the first time I’ve used a booth! It’s practical, you can call in the street without a cell phone…”, smiles the little girl from Grenoble.
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