Archive Article: 2001/03/23
THE news we have been dreading has finally broken and, after some scare reports, the first case of foot-and-mouth has been declared in Mayenne, north-west France – just 60km away from Vimer. This is a major area for conditioning beef and milk with a lot of medium-sized units producing added value products using milk and poultry.
For days before the outbreak, 20 communes (parishes) were shut down with only one access road, no insemination, no milk recording and no movement of livestock. This was a precaution taken around any farm that had imported British sheep since Feb 1. The dairy farm which was contaminated is just 500 yards away from a farm where all the sheep had been slaughtered because there had been an importation.
The restricted area comes across the border into our department of the Orne, taking in Domfront, famous for its pear cider, which has already lost 70% of its pear trees in the millennium storm; and Ferté Macé which is renowned locally for its "tripe kebabs".
Tim has bought in disinfectant for precautionary measures and is restricting traffic. We wont have the milk recorder, reps and unnecessary visitors if things develop, but he is reluctant to be the first to put up complete barriers as we are already condemned by association being British and having sheep.
Luckily, due to a change in Tims sheep groups policy, it has been some years since he brought any sheep across the Channel.
We "got a lot of stick" at the time of the BSE crisis, but havent suffered too much since foot-and-mouth began, although most of my students have commented on the tragedy of it all, then added: "Youve got sheep, havent you?"
On the other hand, we are having elections at the moment and this is the first time that we, as foreigners, have had the right to vote for our local parish Guerquesalles. Ever since it has been known that we could vote, our outgoing mayor Mr Agez, deputy Mrs Dufresne and possibly new mayor Mr Govet have been keen for Tim to put his name down on the list to be a councillor. We went to vote on Sunday, my voters card was number one and Tims number two, being new.
Mrs Dufresne called on Sunday evening to say that Tim had come second on the list, just beating her by one point, which she found vastly amusing. The mayors (each commune has one) vote for the senate, but being English Tim
cannot be elected as mayor, nor deputy – Mr Agez rang up to check as soon as Tim agreed to stand for the conseil. Nevertheless, he was very pleasantly surprised by the results. Some towns and communes have to take a second vote this weekend, but ours doesnt.
Tim, meanwhile, has been inundated by calls from the BBC from the four corners of the UK since this outbreak waiting to talk to him about the French reaction. But what can anyone say?
Frances stance… Chrissie is monitoring foot-and-mouth developments across the Channel.