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So you'd like to read
more about Huelgoat but your French isn't so good? Here are
a few of my translations of articles from local media over
the years... and afew other bits and pieces...
Ouest-France, Thurs 24th April 2008
A change of owner at Les 4
saisons
By Mathieu HAUTEMULLE.
Pascal Lepoutre spends one week in Huelgoat and the other in
Aix-en-Provence. The 4 saisons building still belongs to the
company's former manager.
The traditional jam company
based in the monts d'Arrée caught the eye of its counterpart
Confit de Provence. Surfing on the wave of success
of traditional and local produce.
How does a " petite " regional
company develop on a national scale ? Based in Puyricard
(Bouches-du-Rhône), Confit de Provence came up with the
answer : " External investment and growth ". The
company set out to look for " promising businesses ".
And it set its sights upon Les 4 saisons and its jams form
the Monts d'Arrée (Locmaria-Berrien, just next to Huelgoat).
It set up a holding to acquire the Finistérien company. The
deal was finalised in December 2007, for an undiclosed sum.
The holding involves Les 4 saisons (17
employees, 2,3 million euros of turnover in 2007, a million
pots produced every year) and Confit de Provence (17
employees, 4,3 million euros turnover, three million pots of
jam, of which " about 60 % " for other companies)
placed on " an equal footing ", indicates Pascal
Lepoutre, managing director of both companies. " Maybe
others will join us too"
" Local legitimacy "
The two companies bear many
similarites. " Each has a true local legitimacy " Les 4
saisons, was based in Commana in 1993 and since 2004 it has
been based in Huelgoat, and carries the quality label
"Produit en Bretagne", "Made in Brittany". " In France,
the jam market represents 80 000 to 90 000 tonnes per year,
remarks Pascal Lepoutre. The leader, Andros (Bonne
maman), makes up 50 % ; the supermarket brands 30 % ; the
other 20 %, regional, are our traget market." Son of the
founder of Confit de Provence and formally trained in
business, Pascal Lepoutre « is surfing on the wave of
popularity concerning local produce".
What of the local aspect ? In
Huelgoat, it involves many of the fruits, such as the
strawberries from Plougastel-Daoulas. And mainly their
transformation (in 2 500 m2 in Huelgoat), their
marketing (essentially in the five Breton départements and
the Paris region) and the employees, who live within " 20 km
as the crow flies ".
" One of the first questions
the employees had was obviously if we were going to close
the factory or move it elsewhere ", says Pascal
Lepoutre. The answer was a clear : « Non. » The
managing director " brought guarantees. We are keeping
both sites, here and near to Aix-en-Provence. And there
won't be any job losses. " However, " The alliance "
of the two companies will allow for technological " exchanges "
and " group " buying, in particular the glass
for the pots.
The Telegraph:
12:01am GMT 25/01/2008
British expats win
French healthcare battle
The French government has backed down on a policy that had
stripped thousands of Britons living in France of their
right to benefit from the French state health insurance
system.
The news was greeted with jubilation
by British expatriates after a six-month fight to have the
rules changed.
Last September, French authorities
wrote to expats who had taken early retirement informing
them that they would no longer qualify for government health
insurance. They were told to take out private health
insurance - something practically unavailable to the
disabled or those with chronic medical conditions.
The government said the changes were
the result of an EU directive on residency.
In November, however, following
pressure from expatriates and British officials, France made
a concession to allow anyone already receiving state health
cover by Nov 23 to continue doing so. But it refused to
allow anyone not in the system by that date to join.
This left at least 7,500 Britons
living in France facing a crisis because they had moved to
France on the understanding they would be able to access the
state system when their British government health care cover
ran out. Britain covers expatriates' health care costs for
up to two and a half years.
The government said the changes
were the result of an EU directive on residency
The sudden "retroactive" legislation
was deemed grossly unfair by the British community in
France. Many, including cancer and diabetes patients, had
given up their homes and private health cover back home.
Panic was setting in for thousands of
people whose British government cover ran out on Jan 6.
However, yesterday the British Embassy
announced it had received a letter from Roselyne
Bachelot-Narquin, the French health minister, announcing
that any Briton who emigrated to France before Nov 23, 2007
- whether or not in the French health system before that
date - could now access it. Only those moving to France
after that date would not qualify.
"This news comes as a huge relief for
many British expats living in France," said Mary Honeyball,
a British MEP who submitted a written declaration in the
European Parliament condemning the French move.
"These so-called reforms were totally
unnecessary. I am glad the French government has
backtracked."
French Health Issues, an expat lobby
group that has spearheaded the fight, were celebrating
yesterday.
"We've come from 'everybody out' to
'everybody can stay in' in the space of six months. That's
quite an achievement," said Deborah Dudley, an FHI
spokesman.
Le Télégramme :
Wednesday 24th May
Pont-Aven "The boat was never in
difficulty"
"The Pont Aven is
designed perfectly to anticipate this type of conditions",
declares Jean-Michel Giguet, general manager of Brittany
Ferries.
General manager of
Brittany Ferries, Jean-Michel Giguet talks about the water
wall which crashed down on the Pont Aven, Sunday evening,
just off Ushant. A rogue wave about twenty metres high which
smashed the panes of the promenade deck and flooded 150
cabins. Six people were slightly injured.
Sunday evening, did
the Pont Aven come very close to catastrophe ?
No. At no time was the
boat in difficulty concerning its integrity. The Pont Aven
is designed perfectly to anticipate this type of conditions.
Of course, there was this
enormous wave which struck the ship before penetrating
gradually inside the front part of the boat. But at no time
were we in a situation where the boat was going to take on
board water. Moreover, only part of this wave entered the
ship.
Could the commander
have seen this rogue wave and thus avoided it?
No, it is an extremely
rare phenomenon. He could not see it coming, particularly as
it occurred in middle of the night. It is only when it
crashed down on the boat that he saw it. The commander
reacted at once to put himself and the ship in safety, i.e.
with the stern to the wave.
A wind of panic
obviously blew up inside the ship, didn't it?
Not the crew was
immediately informed of the situation and intervened at
once. Our personnel is trained to intervene on this type of
event. What occurred, is that three couples of passengers,
who were in the zone of the flooded cabins, were very
worried. They came to the information desk, thinking that
the boat was perhaps sinking. When the incident occurred,
the majority of the passengers were dining in the restaurant
or were in the bar. They therefore did not see any water and
they did not panic.
And it is not the
first time that the boat's been immobilized because of a
failure, is it?
One should not link this
event with the technical failure that the company
encountered in August 2004 when we faced damage to the
propulsion system .
Was it wise to take to
the sea Sunday evening, while the winds were blowing at more
than 100 km/h?
Yes, of course. We've
already faced much stronger sea conditions since we've been
sailing ships. A commander never makes the decision to set
sail if all the conditions are not met, even on a personal
level.
It should be known that
the Pont Aven is a boat which was designed and built to face
the open sea and thus to sail in the Bay of Biscay.
Certain crew members
of Brittany Ferries now feel a little apprehensive about
embarking on the flagship of your company, don't they?
That does not make me
smile to hear such things, because it is just not true. It's
silly to think that because of just one incident the
personnel is afraid to sail on the Pont Aven. In fact, there
was a girl working in the restaurant who took to the sea for
the first time. Not being accustomed to sea conditions like
these, she was a little bit scared, that's all.
Are all the safety
conditions really guaranteed on the Pont Aven?
I can wholeheartedly say
“yes” of course. The Pont Aven lis decked out with extremely
satisfactory equipment that many other ships do not have,
not on our lines, but in other companies.
How could this ship,
launched only two years ago, undergo such damage?
It is not damage, but a
little bit of bad luck at sea. It is a wave which can occur
anywhere and crash down on any boat. There have already been
portholes which have exploded under sea conditions. That
only happens very seldomly, but it can occur.
Remarks collected by
Jacques Chanteau
Article from "Le
Poher" mars 2006
The Parisians arrive...as the Brits
leave!
Ouch ! The property sales figures have
just corne in. Rather painful, as far as your wallet is
concerned. The professionals were hoping for a slowdown in
the rise of property. Tough ! Egged on by prices along the
coast, property prices in Brittany continue to rocket,
reaching two-figure increases : 13% up for flat prices +
14.9% up for houses and a staggering 17.7% increase for
building plots.
The British are leaving, the
inhabitants of Ile de France (the region around Paris)
arrive.
After the surge of arrivals, we are
now witnessing the lull. That's not just an impression but a
fact backed up by the experience of 2005. The stonepiles
resembling the typical Breton cottage, which were fetching
100 000 euros a piece have had their day. Our neighbours
from the other side of the Channel, who havé kept the market
buoyant are travelling to pastures new. ln 2005, the figures
fell signficantly : from 33% in 2004 to 15.4% in 2005.
LESS ATTRACTIVE MARKET
For Maître Le Du from
Châteauneuf-du-Faou, the number of transactions with British
clients fell by 10 points from 25% to 15% "The continual
rise in prices has made the market less atractive for the
British", she adds.
A property which was put on the màrket
in 2000 for the equivalent of 31 000 euros is now fetching
100 000 euros. The profile of the average British buyer has
also changed : "Wé're now seeing young retirees with higher
buying power arriving.".
No longer drawn towards Brittany, the
British changed direction in 2005 and started to head for
eastern Europe, along the magnificent Dalmatian coast in
Croatia.
Paradoxically, the number of sales has
not fallen and priees have continued to rise : which is
proof that the much-criticized British are not the only ones
who have been pushing up priees. The large number of
expatriate Bretons, who can afford current market prices,
living in the Île de France region, are now returning jn
large numbers' to buy property, hoping for a haven in which
to spend a quiet retirement.
SPECULATIVE BUBBLE ?
So if the golden age of British
property buying in the centre of Brittany has corne to an
end then what does that mean for the area ?
Maître le Du is sure of one thing :
"We're not facing a speculative bubble. The market has not
been artificially inflated and the clientele essentially
local."--
Article from "The
Mail On Sunday" 8th Jan 2006
Brits storm a French Bastion
The cost of buying a
house or business in France is about to tumble, thanks to
the end of the monopoly enjoyed by French notaries.
British solicitors are
flocking to the French market after an EU ruling that has
loosened the grip of state-controlled officials on property
conveyancing.
Until now , 392 British
law offices in Paris have had to work hand-in-glove with
notaries on property buying. Now they will be in a position
to handle the entire process.
The French have long
complained about the hefty fees charged by notaries.
Solicitors will work far more cheaply.
David Anderson, a British
solicitor with wide experience of French property law, said
"Charges will come crashing down. I recently handed over the
paperwork for a house purchase in France to a notary,
according to the old rules. The property cost £10 million.
The notary collected one per cent - £100,000 for a few hours
work. No wonder French notaries invite me to the best
restaurants in Paris.
He added "British
solicitors are not going to advertise their rates, but they
will be well below those charged by notaries. The newcomers
will be competing not only against the notaries, but among
themselves"
Article translated
from Yahoo! NEWS pages
Asian bird flu: simulation on a
Finistère farm
KERGLOFF, Finistère (Reuters) - A full
scale exercise meant to test the national plan of action
against the Asian bird flu took place on a chicken farm in
the small Finistérien village of Kergloff.
It's the second test of its kind in
France, following the first one which took place in June,
also in Brittany.
The bird flu epidemic has since shown
up in the European Union.
"The point of the exercise was to test
and evalue the process of dealing with this animal health
problem on a real life scale" explained François Lucas, the
Prefect responsible for safety in Brittany .
"For the occasion we chose a farm
where they would have noticed an abnormal death rate among
their livestock and alerted the local services via their
vet" he added.
On the Kergloff site, which can house
up to 60.000 chickens, several police vehicles checked
comings and goings in the area, as the procedure requires.
Coloured tape blocked off the farm and signs reading "Entrée
interdite Elevage sous contrôle sanitaire" (No entry. Farm
under health and safety control) were displayed.
Men wearing yellow put into place
disinfection systems using caustic soda for pedestrians and
vehicles - foot washes and wheel washes. Investigations into
"farms linked epidemiologically" to the fictional heart of
the outbreak were also undertaken.
Technicians from the vetinary services
took blood samples from chickens which were shown to a
hudred or so journalists in a disused building.
Wearing protective suits and masks ,
gloves and goggles, the technicians opened a chicken's vein
and collected its blood in a tube which would then be sent
to for ananlysis at a laboratory in the Côtes-d'Armor.
"FEAR"
"At this stage in the process, we have
to check the suspected outbreak of bird flu and what's
important is the speed and efficiency of the intervention
with a minimum of people involved", believes Laurence
Deflesselle, deputy departemental director of the vetinary
services in Finistère.
"IThere's a very slight risk of
transmission of the virus to man because that requires
repeated and unprotected contact with the animals or their
excrements", she added.
With the frontier controls and the
confinement of certain farms, Laurence Deflesselle believes
that France can perfectly handle "the few existing risks of
the illness emerging" on its territory.
As guest observers, some poultry
farmers were worried about the reports in the media of such
an exercise which had been planned "for several months".
They also feared the possible implications on the sales of
poultry in France, becaus of the european-wide fears of the
spread of the highly pathogenic H5N1 virus.
"We've noticed an acute fear on behalf
of the consumer with a drop in sales of fresh poultry by
almost 20% even though France hasn't yet reported a single
case of bird flu", stressed Didier Goubil, president of the
poultry farmers commission at the Finistère Chamber of
Commerce.
"Today's exercise is no more than a
fire drill in a school and would usually go unnoticed in a
calmer climate. Its impact on reassuring people would depend
on the way it was portrayed in the media", he added.
In a region where about 40% of Frances
poultry is produced and where the poultry industry directly
represents around 20,000 jobs, the professionals are worried
about the economic consequences of the butrgeoning
"psychosis".
"Ok for the principal of precaution,
but there are also people who are victims of a psychosis
which has nothing to do with reality", explains Joseph
Dréano, the representative of poultry farmers in Brittany.
At the end of teh exercise, Monique
Eloit, deputy director general for Food in the Agriculture
Ministry, wanted to reassure people.
"In Europe as in France, this illness
(bird flu) doesn't really exist. All poultry produced is
from perfectly healthy livestocks" she said.
The exercise is supposed to continue
on Friday with tests of the protection of personnel
intervening directly in the farm.
Article from 'Le
Poher' weekly newspaper
For
dozens of British families, their dealings with the artful
Louis turned their vision of'a dream life in France into a
nightmare.
There is no
doubt that some families who have bought properties in
central Brittany have been the target of an unscrupulous
conman. Since 2001, people have been conned out of tens, or
even hundreds of thousands of euros. The company, "Blue
Azur", was a property agency, run by a certain Louis Giroud,
a man who promised the earth to his clients, took their
money and ran. Having been dedared dead in a road accident,
M. Giroud was found to be very much alive and just after his
funeral in November 2003, he did a disappearing act.
THE
GENDARMERIE DE CHÂTEAULIN: A TRICKY INQUIRY
Louis
Giroud is only too well known to the gendarmes at the
Brigade de Recherche in Châteaulin. They opened up an
inquiry on him over a year ago and would like anyone who had
dealings with Louis Giroud to get in touch with them. The
gendarme handling the inquiry is sure that this is only the
tip of the iceberg: "There are at least 10 families involved
that we know of. Unfortunately only three have made formal
complaints. We need thirty or so to give any weight to our
investigation". It is not only the language barrier which
prevents people making a formal complaint. According to the
investigating gendarme :"People are ashamed that they have
been tricked by this man. They are worried because they are
not familiar with police procedures in France. The gendarme
leading the investigation asks anyone who was involved with
M. Giroud to contact him directly.
The French
and British police are working together on the case but
progress is slow due to the difficulty in pinning down both
the man himself and the evidence. It is known that he is no
longer in Brittany but elsewhere in France.
Another
victim of Louis Giroud, Mrs Muriel Cottle decided to leave
the UK in January 2003 because she could no longer stand
louts relieving themselves - and worse - in her garden. At
83, she took the decision to move to France: Mrs Cottle also
trusted Louis Giraud, like John and Dorothy Wakefield (see
last week's Poher), she had no reason not to. She arrived in
Carhaix on a Saturday, with the removal lorry, to find the
house locked and no sign of our friend Louis. She also
discovered that the so-called notaire had relieved her bank
account of all its contents. Mrs Cottle had given Louis
Giroud power of attorney over her French bank account, so
that he could get the utilities laid on, deal with insurance
and so on. She managed to contact the owners, who, though
reluctant to give her the keys as contracts had not been
exchanged, let her put her goods and chattels inside the
house. The house had been unoccupied for some months and
given that the house was damp with puddles on the parquet
where the windows were leaking, the owners did not feel at
all happy about her spending the night there. She eventually
stayed for two nights at the hotel Noz Vad. As she had been
left without a penny in her account, she had no money to pay
for her room until she was able to contact her bank in
England. Fortunately for Mrs Cottle, the owners of the hotel
looked after her and made sure she got to the notaire's
office in Poullaouën on the Monday morning. "Without their
help, I don't know what I would have done. They were so
kind".
CONTACT
US .
If you have
had a problem with Louis Giroud, you can either contact us
at the Poher Hebdo on 0298991514 or by e-mail on
poher.hebdo@wanadoo.fr or contact the Gendarmerie de
Châteaulin directly, the investigating policeman says that
people should not be put off by the fact that they do not
speak French. The Poher Hebdo would like to help victims set
up an association.
Alison Wall
(14-20/09/2005)
La Bretagne
tries to resist the British invaders
The massive arrival of Brits in Brittany over the past few
years, in part responsible for the rise in property prices,
has provoked several small demos in the region over the past
few weeks.
Around 100 people demonstarted in Bourbriac (Côtes d'Armor)
on Saturday to denounce the rise in property prices in
Brittany. The association A-Stroll («together» in Breton),
Close to the lefty Breton nationalist party, these
demonsrators met in the centre of the village, where they
symbolically burnt Estate agents newsletters. Several demos
of this type have already been held in the region over the
last few weeks. Miss Gaëlle Roblin, speaking for the group,
called for people to increase the actionst «against those
who are selling off our country». She denounced the prices
of property, «which are artificially inflated while Bretons
are finding it so hard to find housing». Criticising estate
agents, notaries and elected representatives, she notably
attacked «the colonialism of the English». After the
meeting, the breton militants stuck up posters on the front
of an estate agent's and the local notary's office declaring
among other things «Brittany is not for sale», «Stop the
speculation»
The Brits represent the main foreign community in Brittany
outnumbering the Maroccans and the Portugese, with around
5.000 inhabitants, that's 10,5% of immigrants in the région,
according to a report last year published by l'Insee
Bretagne. The number of Brits coming to live in France for
the warmer climate and relatively cheaper property prices is
a phénomènon whuich has risen sharply since the 90s «It's
true that there are more and more Brits here. Over the past
few years, 35 out of 40 old houses bought in the village
(with around 2.350 inhabitants) were bought by Brits. But
globally, there isn't a problem with them», declared Yannick
Botrel, mayor of Bourbriac, who distanced himself from
these demos. «It's more the retired parisiens than the
foreigners who have pushed the prices up over the last ten
years, and of course, if people buy it's because others
accept to sell to them...», he argued. «The problèm with the
English is that they live in their bubble. The majority
don't try to intégrate, they want to stay English and live
as English and take Brittany to be just another bit of
British countryside.», claimed Sybille, a Bretonne who
demonstarted on Saturday. «They organise groups to buy
English products. They try to make the locals who live
around them feel as if they should learn English », she
complained.
( 21/02/2005 )
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