Founded in 1985, the Mouvement rural de Vendée operates in various fields, from culture to heritage, including the environment, artistic practices, and sports activities. "The ultimate goal is really to create connections between residents, to ensure that villages are lively, to energize them, and sometimes to revitalize them," explains Mathilde Bazireau.
This objective is pursued through rural community centers and associative cafés, as well as Causette, a traveling caravan that can serve as a performance stage, library, or playhouse. The federation also directly engages with villages that are far from shops and services, offering workshops aimed particularly at combating isolation.
The main challenge is to foster local initiatives. "The best outcome we can achieve is to never have to return to that village because we know that there is a group that has formed and has initiated something," she emphasizes.
Beyond the activities offered, Mouvement Rural 85 aims to change perceptions of rural areas and recreate spaces for dialogue. "One of our goals is also to restore connections, to facilitate conversation and debate," summarizes Mathilde Bazireau, to enable residents to "live together peacefully and feel good, to inhabit where they are".
Mouvement Rural 85 is an initiative suggested to us by the opération Milliard, one of whose missions is to make visible the organizations of the Just Transition.
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