Véronique Bardet’s column: Dirty prejudices!

“The poor are damaging the planet”; “they don’t know how to eat healthily”; “we must teach them to be eco-responsible”…

In an incisive little book* just published, the ATD Fourth World movement responds to twenty misconceptions about the poor and ecology. Some are nothing new, such as the prejudice – straight from the hygienism of the end of the 19th century – according to which their living spaces are dirtier.

While there is a direct correlation between the level of wealth and the production of garbage, “the rich have the power to make their waste invisible by all kinds of means,” explains sociologist Denis Blot.

The less fortunate experience constrained sobriety, and develop real know-how: non-waste, repair, resourcefulness, mutual aid… And although their homes are more often located far from green spaces, they aspire, like everyone else, to recharge their batteries there.

During a presentation of the book in Paris, I was touched by the testimony of Patricia, who came from Toulouse. Living on the edge of a national road, she is subject to constant background noise. Escape? “The first forest is 10 km away. But I need to be able to walk in nature, it relaxes, it refocuses. I realize that silence is very important. »

Silence, this invisible and neglected treasure to which we should all have access.