A third fewer inhabitants. This is the hemorrhage faced by the small village of Dancé in Roannais, between the 1968 and 1975 censuses. The population then went from 177 inhabitants to 117.
“The very illustration of the village victim of the rural exodus”, writes our reporter Jean Tranchard in The Tribune – Progress of Tuesday December 16, 1975. With this observation: the new generations are deserting the commune. “We can count on the fingers of one hand the young people who stay in the country during the week. »
“We can count on the fingers of one hand the young people who stay in the country during the week”
However, in the mid-seventies, the small town on the banks of the Loire refused to contemplate its slow agony. She decided to face destiny by mobilizing her elders, those “who do not measure their dynamism by their date of birth”, as well as the young people who return to the village every weekend: “on Sundays, they are all there”, even notes our journalist.
In 1964, the town created its youth association, “a homeopathic treatment which would bear fruit in the long term”. Six years later, in 1970, this same association began looking for premises. “The town, too modest, did not have one. There were classrooms, but when we installed a ping-pong table and a table football, that was the maximum.”
However, we must respond to the needs of the association which, for its part, is doing well. The height of irony was that the young people had to give up performing their play in the town, due to lack of a room to receive the public! “You can practice artistic decentralization without wanting to, but you risk provoking, among your own fellow citizens, an unpleasant feeling of frustration.”
A prefab purchased in Rive-de-Gier with the benefit of the vogue
Salvation ended up coming from a sale of the estates which offered the prefabricated premises of an old school in Rive-de-Gier which was no longer in use. “The cost: 6,000 francs. It was not ruinous, especially since the patronal celebration – which had been particularly lively – left a comfortable profit. »
One day in June 1974, the young people got behind the wheel of a semi-trailer and headed into the Gier valley to collect their future 140 m room.2. And in November of that year, after endless evenings rebuilding this room in kits, Dancé was finally able to receive his new living space, erected like a fortress against the threat of rural exodus.
Belote competitions, theatrical performances, balls, bowling games… In Dancé, the activities began to waltz: almost twenty events organized in one year!
Despite these efforts, the population nevertheless continued to decline until the mid-eighties, before experiencing – finally – the much-hoped-for rebound.
