The
exodus from Aveyron has continued and increased. The true loss of people
from 1940 is about 45,000 residents. Although the urban area of Greater
Rodez successfully resisted the decline in it’s industries and
it’s “Valley of Mechanical Engineering”. But the rural
areas were not able to retain the young on the land. Many emigrated
north to the Ile-de-France and other big urbans centres.
1962 was noted by a big strike of the miners of Decazeville who rejected
the end of coal extraction. To compensate for these job losses the metallurgic
industry was organised but quickly showed its limitations. From then
on it was necessary to resort to other plans. The
plans to extend the military camps of the French army on the Plateau
of Larzac were enthusiastically objected to by the Hippies who were
supported by the population of South –Aveyron with a huge majority.
In 1978 the farmers marched on Paris with their elected heads at the
front. More
than 20 years later the legacy of this movement undoubtedly formed a
fair share of the roots of Jose Bove’s Peasant Confederacy. The
daily paper ‘Liberation’ described it later as follows: “The
farmers chose to establish young smallholders on the edges of the extended
military camp” in order to assert that they were there to stay.
