The Significance of 1000

Meeting
The meeting with Jean-François to make final changes to the guided tour text was effectively aborted because Jean-François couldn't come. It's something that happens very frequently in these parts, I am finding. However, I had a good apéro dinant with Daniel and some of his friends: Ann, Jacques and Claudine, all very interesting people. We went to Ann's house for coffee afterwards as Daniel's cafetière was broken. Her house has an unusual layout and ground floor walls that have a smooth finish rather than the rough finish that is common here. The effect, since the walls were far from flat although with a smooth finish, was what you night see in an English cottage a couple of hundred or so years old. I'm finding that there is no standard layout to the houses here, or rather the old ones; each has been built according to the space on the land, hardness of the rock and contours available.

The Significance of 1000
In the Mayor's end of year briefing last December he announced that a census during the year showed that Mollans now has a population of 1001. So what? I thought. In fact, it turns out to be quite significant. Firstly, it opens up for the village a new level of possible subsidies from the state and also helps to keep alive the village school. There is a general move in France to consolidate facilities such as schools and hospitals and whether you keep such facilities or not depends on the number of inhabitants. The number 1000 is apparently an important threshold.

There's another angle to this which could well lead to a Clochemerle moment (of which there have already been a few). At 1000 inhabitants, Mollans has the right (but not the duty) to have a chemist in the village. At the moment, the nearest pharmacy is in Buis, 8km away. In fact, there are two chemists in Buis. The number of chemists in towns/villages is strictly controlled by the professional body and goes according to the population. As an aside, there are two types of chemist in France: one which corresponds to an English chemist and one that can sell only toiletries and harmless therapeutic concoctions; they can't even sell aspirin or paracetamol. It is the former that are controlled by the professional body. Buis originally had only one chemist but a spat between a doctor and the chemist many years ago produced the need for another chemist. Buis added the Mollans population to its own to create a catchment area that justified having two chemists. Now Mollans is entitled to a chemist in its own right, what happens? Watch this space............