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Let’s safeguard biodiversity and natural resources

« A green vale with a view to Pic de Nore ; a sunny afternoon in June; on a steep hillside, an ancient 200 yard-long sheepfold whose huge roof looks like the vault of a cathedral; groups of learned, merry guests, all of them as knowledgeable in agronomy as in « art de vivre », a former captain of the French rugby team as charming as my hosts … here’s the setting and the characters of an unforgettable party … deeply moved and having grown old, I could relive my young days of just after the war …when as young lads from Agen, we had camped above Saint-Amans Soult. While the sun was scorching the Garonne valley, we breathed the cool air in la Montagne Noire. Quite close from that place, I was able to experience even better moments, true bliss at Les Fontanelles, the Groupe Frayssinet’s reception facilities, at Rouairoux, in this green vale. A company becomes a family not only when a family found a company and develop it, from generation to generation, up to the fifth, but also when a generous, friendly, cheerful mind keeps a human dimension within. On that day in June, I had less the feeling I was delivering a lecture to the executives of a company, than having a family talk with friends coming from almost everywhere in France, to Luc and Thierry Frayssinet’s invitation/convening. With them, the agrarian, family and regional tradition, is twinned with a stunning presence in today’s world and its swift evolution. Nobody can ignore today the harm done to the air, the earth, water and men by men themselves and by the polluting flows of our productions. Altogether causes and victims, the industry, the agriculture, services, and finally ourselves have been polluting the elements all the more so as we have become more efficient. That’s why we must, on pain of death, become the symbionts of our planet and no longer be its parasites or predators. Hence the idea the company must be praised for, to produce fertilizers which, in the long term can enrich soils and not impoverish them. Here is the work, the spirit of a family and the company that, on a glorious afternoon in June, invited me to see how a sheep-pen can become a palace, how work can become a celebration and sharing-time pure bliss. Thanks so much to the two wizards who conjured up this transformation. »

Michel Serres, of Académie Française
Michel Serres was born in Agen (Lot-et-Garonne), France, September 1st 1930, a French philosopher and epistemologist. He has been a professor of History of Sciences at the Université Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne since 1969, he’s been a professor at Stanford University as well since 1984. He was elected at the Académie Française in March, 29th, 1990.

Le Grenelle Environnement