Entre Nous: Countdown for unnamed roads in France • FRANCE 24 English

Entre Nous: Countdown for unnamed roads in France • FRANCE 24 English

well for many of you who’ve gone for a drive or a walk in the French Countryside getting lost on a road or a path with no name is actually pretty common but the French government is now trying to get smaller towns to change that and give those places a name we’re going to talk more about this with Salon muan who joins me in the studio hi salie so giving a name to these places or these roads is a little more complicated than it seems and it also seems that there’s a deadline that’s approaching to establish these addresses yeah there are just two days left uh for small French towns that have less than 2,000 residents and there are 35,000 of them for them to make sure that uh they have names on all their roads uh homes and places in their Village uh they all have a specific address now this move is part of a law called the 3D legislation and it was passed in 2022 it’s named the 3D because of the so it’s called the differentiation decentralization and deconcentration and simplification law and its goal is essentially to simplify the work of town halls across France but one element of this law the giving of addresses and Road names to hundreds of thousands of places well it’s proving to be a huge undertaking bigger towns had until January 1st and now these smaller towns have until Saturday June 1st to uh abide by the law before the law there were more than 350,000 roads and routes in France that did not have a an official name just 15% of small towns had done this for all addresses now today the changes concern nearly 2 million French people who will now have a new or a different address for example in the town of moles in central France there are less than 600 residents but there are hundreds of names that needed to be given we’re establishing between 400 and 450 addresses in the town of mes which is a lot so it would be surprising if there aren’t ones we forget make mistakes on or double up so why does the government want these places in France to have specific addresses and what’ll happen if if they don’t well luckily and hopefully nothing will happen for now uh for these Town Halls as there are some 200,000 roads that haven’t been named yet just over half of these towns have done so but the other half have not uh there are no fines currently uh if the town does not name every route but that said once the law goes into effect June 1st if the municip ality hasn’t done it then it could be liable for damages if the lack of an address causes for example firefighters or ambulances to lose their way and not to get to a fire or an ill person because they got lost so small towns but also cities before them while they’ve been working for years to name or some of them have been working for years to name everything in some places like in the southwest town city of Salah uh the city asked locals what they wanted for their unnamed streets on social media the other name that came out on top was Simon V Simon DEA and Josephine Baker but also more original names like trle street or fuaga road because we’re in the capital of gastronomy the added value is clear in regard to tourism to use GPS location tracking it’s also the case for First Responders you have to think about how it’ll be easier for them to find out where they need to be and finally it will help mail services with letters and packages as we just heard there are many reasons to create uh established Road names and addresses many homes are actually given large numbers of their addresses and this actually refers to the meters from the start of the road this is for future urbanization uh and also to help First Responders know the distance so there is this safety aspect uh there’s also high-speed internet cables they require specific address tags GPS systems also use them as doe postal and uh delivery Personnel all right so there’s a lot of arguments as to why these address changes and these new names are a good thing but the law is still still created quite a bit of an uproar well there’s the question of what to name uh these roads and paths sometimes it works out well uh in a sort of collegial manner uh with towns uh picking specific names either that already existed by word of mouth or in the history of the place or are picking new ones that have a specific local significance those choices have solidified the history of these places people like narratives not lies stories it can help younger Generations who feel lost to understand their history as we say in the North in if you don’t know where you come from you can’t know where to go however as gennie was referring to it there has been a lot of pushback as well because sometimes the changes have not been have not taken into account Regional spec specificities and Regional languages or the choices have actually been outsourced because doing the research uh uh and naming things well it costs money and time many hamlets or Ludi as we call them in French well they’ve been called by a specific name for hundreds of years and then they were suddenly changed into something else entirely in alas where there’s a strong Regional sentiment there’s been push back about naming streets in French versus alation in Britany also an association has even called on UNESCO to help save these yudi or these Hamlet names which they argue uh have been given names in French and not in the traditional Bruton so there are many people in French Village who fear that these changes and the standardization well that it’s chipping away from uh their local history and their Regional specificities all right Salange that’s fascinating stuff thank you so much for that look at that new law that’s going to put addresses make addresses uh necessary here in France thank you very much thanks to Salange and thanks to you for watching don’t go away I’ll be back at the top of the hour with more headlines [Music]

With the legal deadline fast approaching, we take a look at why a law to name for hundreds of thousands of  unnamed roads is such a challenge for towns across France. We find out how the change for 1.8 million French addresses could help first responders, but also hurt regional heritage.
#frenchroads #bureaucracy #frenchculture

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