120 years old, the Tour de France is not just a sports story. The cycling event is now anchored in popular culture, heir to years of passages in the emblematic places of the country, including in the rural villages of the Pays de la Loire region. Memories in Renazé and Mazé.
Beyond an internationally renowned race, the Tour de France has also been a tour of its rural regions since its creation in 1903.
The spectacle offered by the campaign is a source of inspiration for the commentators. “And suddenly, a terrible start! Marguerite goes away meter after meter, but how beautiful a sprinting cow is”can we hear in an audiovisual archive of the competition, in front of a cow launched at full gallop alongside the cyclists.
video duration: 00h02mn25s
Images of the rural stages of the Tour de France in Pays de la Loire. • ©France Televisions / David Jouillat
The reception of the tour is also a festive event in which the inhabitants invest themselves, and which sometimes takes on the air of a communal clearance sale. “The real cap of your favorite champions, the cap of Poulidor or Ocaña!”exclaims a salesman.
“At 10:30 a.m., we couldn’t say mass with the publicity caravan. And the parishioners… and the priest wanted to see the tour”smiles a priest in front of the camera.
The installation of snack bars and bales of straw acting as barriers shows the gratitude of the inhabitants towards the organizers who have traced the route with them in mind. Well not quite, since you have to put your hand in your wallet to accommodate a few kilometers of the big loop.
In 1987, the 3,000 inhabitants of Renazé – the village of the cyclist brothers Marc and Yvon Madiot in Maine-et-Loire – had to find 320,000 francs to pay the subsidy requested by the Tour company. “We wanted to participate, but on condition that the municipal budget does not support the expenses of this event”informs Daniel Houdin, mayor of Renazé between 1977 and 1995.
The Renazéens launch a subscription and sell nearly 7000 tickets at 10 francs. We lend them 1,200 safety barriers and the truck to pick them up. “I think we will make a little profit, but I would have liked to make more”commented the mayor at the time.
In the reports of the late 1980s, the image broadcast on the countryside sometimes leaves something to be desired. Passing the tour through rural villages offers local exoticism at a lower cost. He says a little about those who live there, and much more about visiting journalists: “Music, laughter, good-natured atmosphere, in this town of 1,800 inhabitants where nothing usually happens, it was a party”judge hastily the comment of a journalist, evoking another commune.
The arrival of the Tour nevertheless remains an opportunity to advertise the region and stimulate tourism. “Come many to this infinitely welcoming, sporty region, which produces the most beautiful onions in the country”we hear in an advertising insert dedicated to the Mazé stage (east of Angers) in 1978.
The smallest village on the tour that year, proud of its land, displays a banner which reads: “Capital of the Tour de France for a day, capital of the onion forever.”
video length: 00h02mn08s
In 1978, the Tour de France passed through Mazé, which became Mazé-Milon after the municipal consolidation of 2016. • ©France Télévisions / David Jouillat
In Mazé too, the organizers of the Tour are asking for a participation, fixed at 100,000 francs. And there too, the journalists allow themselves an unwelcome paternalism.
“The Tour is good for business”answers a pensioner to the question of one of them. “No, but it’s not just commerce in life, there’s tourism, there’s Anjou, there’s Mazé!”, replies the latter dryly. In front of the camera, the old man does not hesitate to have the last word with mischief: “And then there are the onions!”
This 1978 Tour de France was about to be won by Bernard Hinault, but it was the Belgian Freddy Maertens who emerged victorious from the Mazé stage. The runners left the village the next day, July 5, 1978, setting off for Poitiers, in front of the magnificent Château de Montgeoffroy.
With David Jouillat
#VIDEO #Memories #Tour #France #big #loop #crosses #countryside
