[Campaign notebook to be found in the summer magazine, at your newsstand or by subscription.] One year before the great democratic fair of the presidential and legislative elections, we went to Berry to see how the LGBT community envisions 2027.
Photography: Dana Tentea / Hans Lucas for têtu·
Valençay or Pouligny-Saint-Pierre? In Berry, the question can become quite serious. Under France 3’s cameras, several confraternities in togas fervently defend their goat cheese within the garden of Valençay Castle, about forty minutes from Châteauroux. Black hats on their heads and sautoirs bearing their appellation around their necks, the representatives of Crottin de Chavignol or Selles-sur-Cher keep their terroir alive. This year, Sainte-Maure de Touraine takes the lead.
Just a few meters from the tasting table, Alexis Rousseau-Jouhennet mainly watches the clouds that darken the images in the press. Director of the estate and mayor of Levroux, a neighboring town of 3,000 inhabitants, this forty-something passionately defends this heritage. “A castle like that can bring together generations and people of different backgrounds. It belongs to all and encourages pride in a territory in which one is rooted”, he pleads. Under his leadership, the estate hosts cheese contests as well as electro nights whose bass reverberate through the valley. Former director of the Châteauroux tourism office, the man speaks of the Berry as one speaks of a family. And Valençay Castle, with its French-style gardens and memories of Talleyrand, seems capable of letting history enthusiasts and nocturnal partygoers coexist.
When will there be a LGBT+ center in Châteauroux
A devout Catholic from a family of tanners, Alexis Rousseau-Jouhennet spent a long time living with a woman before embracing his homosexuality. Not really convinced by LGBT activism, the label interests him little. ‘I feel more Berrichon than gay,’ he declares with a smile. ‘My homosexuality has no impact on my life. I do not hide it, but I do not feel the need to talk about it.’ Politics has nevertheless always fascinated him. As a child, he already played mayor with his Legos. After studies in history, he joined the office of Châteauroux’s mayor Jean-François Mayet, a right-wing figure, then worked with Gil Avérous, a gay man himself, future Minister of Sports in the short-lived government of Michel Barnier. ‘Without ever being enrolled in a party, I position myself more to the right’, confirms Alexis Rousseau-Jouhennet, a fan of Cannes’ LR mayor David Lisnard. In this last year before Emmanuel Macron leaves the Élysée, he worries mainly about the lack of political stability: ‘The dithering around an impossible budget keeps us from solving the problems in the territories’, he says, citing medical desertification as the top priority in his town.
Easily recognizable with his large red glasses, Michel Navion gives the impression of knowing everyone in Châteauroux, the Indre prefecture with over 40,000 inhabitants. When we call him, this retired lawyer immediately organizes a round of meetings. In the back of a tea room on Saint-Luc Street, discussions flow as easily as coffee. At 79, this former SOS homophobie activist has been trying for more than a year to open an LGBT+ center in Châteauroux. ‘In a small prefecture like this, an LGBT bar is a bar where heterosexuals go, but it is run by a gay host’, he jokes to summarize the scene. There was Le Diable Rouge, but it closed in 2013. Michel mainly describes the administrative exhaustion of local activism. ‘It’s not so much a money problem. Public authorities have helped us fairly well since Elisabeth Borne unlocked a budget of 3 million euros to open centers. But subsidies are annual, which makes it impossible to commit for several years.’
He would like to hire a part-time employee in his association, Stop Homophobia, to ensure drop-in hours and to continue the outreach he conducts with Mathis in schools. Slim with a soft voice, this 22-year-old recounts openly the homophobia he endured as a teenager. “In middle school and high school, it was very hard. I withdrew completely, I was depressed. With the confinements, which I spent with parents who did not accept my homosexuality, it was explosive. In adolescence, I had self-destructive behaviors, risky health behaviors under the influence of drugs. Today, more at peace, he mentors students with disabilities and shares his experience in the local schools.
The end of Macronism
Farther into the department, Mickaël waits with his husband Joël for the birth of their first child. “This is twenty years that we’ve been talking about it,” he smiles. After an initial surrogacy project in the United States, interrupted by the pandemic, the couple turned to Colombia. But the baby’s arrival coincides with the liquidation of their chocolate shop and pastry near Valençay. “In a context where everyone tightens their belt, pastry and chocolate have become luxury goods”, explains Mickaël. A activist with the Association of Gay and Lesbian Parents and Future Parents (APGL), he looks at the political situation with a disillusioned eye.
“Emmanuel Macron has lost his panache in his second term, falling into populist postures”, he laments, regretting that surrogacy remains a political topic that is impossible to address despite majority public support. Disappointed, he nonetheless remains involved, within the Chamber of Trades and Crafts or the Family Allowance Fund. “It is very important to have LGBT representation within family-facing institutions, where many people are still insensitive to our rights, just as in parent-teacher associations. We must take militant action outside purely LGBT circles”, he believes. He also stresses the importance, for activists in favor of same-sex parenting, to engage in the departmental commissions that review adoption requests. In his view, the cultural battle is fought as much in these institutions as through demonstrations.
Hurrying around their van, Réjane and Agnès finish the final preparations before setting off for a few days on the road. Two cats cross the garden calmly as they pack their suitcases. Married for two years, they have never left each other since they met on Meetic twenty years ago. “We have witnessed substantial advances in LGBT rights, but today the pendulum seems to have swung in the opposite direction”, sighs Agnès. Réjane often thinks of her father, a Gaullist with authoritarian leanings who had long refused her homosexuality before changing. “In the end, he defended the rights of homosexuals to his friends!” Simon Ains, on the other hand, no longer talks to his father. Host of Ici Berry’s morning show, the journalist still remembers the day his father found a HIV test in his room and told him: “I hope it’s not you who bites the pillow.” Since then, he watches with concern the political climate tense. “What scares me is not so much the Rassemblement National as a party. It’s the freedom of speech among its voters.” He recalls hearing residents declare “very strongly that Arabs should go back home, because the RN was coming.” Traumatized by a father “a Jean-Marie Le Pen FN voter”, he fears that this verbal violence will become even more normalized.
A concern shared by Christiane, 75, who is preparing her motorcycle license after a long career as a teacher of history. “I spent my life teaching how not to repeat past mistakes, and now we are inexorably heading into it again”, notes this feminist who was president of the local chapter of the Human Rights League. She particularly disapproves of Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s strategy: ‘His party rests on a cult of the leader, the humiliation of opponents, and the division of the French’, she regrets, recalling “the lack of credibility of the left after the 1929 crisis” which caused her to fail ‘to stop the nationalism of the authoritarian right’. Indre has been spared from the RN’s advance. No deputy from Marine Le Pen’s party was elected in the department and only one town has a far-right mayor. In this region long seen as politically moderate, many report a climate more tense than before. At the end of January, Jordan Bardella came to sign his book in the small town of Coings, ten minutes north of Châteauroux. More than a thousand people attended. It may not be Bercy, but it’s more than the village’s population…
