Rural France in fear of losing the `art of living'

People feel their way of life is threatened and that voting makes no difference, writes John Lichfield in Donzy

Josette Marizot runs adjacent shops, selling flowers and clothes, in the pretty town of Donzy, 12 miles east of the river Loire, in the verdant, rolling, empty centre of France. In the Eighties she was an enthusiastic supporter of Francois Mitterrand, whose political fiefdom was in this part of western Burgundy, the Nievre. How did she vote in the last presidential election in 1995? At first she insists that her decision is a secret; then, with a shrug and a dismissive toss of the head, admits that she turned to the right to vote for Jacques Chirac.

Asked about next Sunday's parliamentary elections - supposedly a crucial battle for the political soul of France - Madame Marizot throws up her hands: "What's the point? No one's talking about these elections. People feel rejected, cheated. We were happy in France, maybe too happy. Now, we look ahead and see a long tunnel with no light. Whoever we choose, they do the same things and nothing changes." How will she vote? "I will cast a blank ballot. I won't be the only one."

From the cities to the suburbs to the green depths of La France Profonde, hundreds of thousands of French voters are approaching the poll with the same truculence and exaggerated pessimism as Mrs Marizot: not just an indifference, but a passionate indifference. Of the three political meetings held in Donzy since President Chirac called an early election, one was badly attended. Two were not attended at all.

There are scores of small towns like this all over France: the significance of Donzy is that, in the three last national elections; 1986, 1993 and 1995, the townspeople - les Donziais - voted very close to the way that France voted. In the second round in 1995, Donzy was the only place to vote precisely like France: 52.7 per cent for Mr Chirac and 47.2 per cent for the Socialist leader, Lionel Jospin.

In important ways, Donzy is not France. It has no immigrants, no problem suburbs, little crime. Its sole manufacturing industry is a thriving little factory which makes plastic drinking straws for McDonalds. Unemployment is slightly less than the national average of 12 per cent.

In other important ways, Donzy is France. It typifies the ambivalence, even the perversity, of the national mood: a desire for change, matched by a terror of change; an apparently unchanging and conservative surface, below which many things are not quite as they appear; a constant complaint that politicians do not address the real issues - unemployment, Europe, crime, immigration - but an admission that there is little popular willingness to think those issues through.

Thierry Flandin, 41, an independent regional councillor representing Donzy and its surrounding villages, is a thoughtful man, a farmer and a student of politics who has just finished reading Baroness Thatcher's memoirs. He says the local mood, and the national mood, worries him. There is a disaffection from politics, from the state itself, which goes deeper than anything he can remember. It is partly a result of the many political-financial scandals. It is partly a sense that decisions are passing out of the hands of elected politicians and being taken over by Europe or the markets. It is partly a sense that left and right have alternated regularly since Mitterrand came to power in 1981, and that, in power, they have "governed with the opposition's programme, and nothing much has happened".

He compares France in 1997 to Britain in the Seventies: a sense of frustration and helplessness of a great country in decline, but no readiness on the part of the politicians or the people to take the risk of a decisive change of direction. "We know in our hearts that France needs to take a crucial step forward. That we have to accept that the world has changed and that France needs to become less taxed, less bureaucratic, less state- controlled. But there is also a fear that we may lose the things that make us French. And every time we look around, we find that the crucial step has still to be taken..."

There is a tendency among foreign - especially American - commentators to suggest that France has got everything wrong. Coming to a town like Donzy is a reminder that, in terms of quality of life, the art de vivre, the French have got many things right. Donzy, a town of 1,700 people, is still recognisably a community and a living social and commercial centre. It has three bakeries, a butcher, two grocers, a pharmacy, a jewellers, two clothes shops, a flower shop, two hardware shops, a newspaper shop, two garages, several bars, two hotels and two restaurants. What town of Donzy's size in Britain, or America, where business rules, could boast all these small businesses?

Skim the surface and you find that the survival of the businesses depends partly on subsidies and planning decisions by the multiple layers of French regional and local government; that many of the businesses are struggling to survive, in the face of supermarket competition in larger towns nearby; that much of their trade comesfrom the weekending Parisians who have bought up scores of local houses and farmsteads hereabouts

"In 10 years' time, we fear, Donzy may no longer be Donzy," said the mayor and local headmaster, Bernard Devin, 53. "We still live reasonably well here, but for many people already it is becoming a close thing whether they can survive or have to move to a larger town."

How will Donzy vote? Mr Flandin, the regional councillor, says that, malheureusement, the National Front score may be surprisingly high in the first round. But he thinks that the centre-right will win narrowly in Donzy in the second round on 1 June. Mr Devin, the mayor, says the outcome in Donzy will be very close, but his impression is that the town will revert, on the second round, to the centre-left.