Baby Boom?

In 2010, financial crisis or not, France was the most baby-productive nation in Europe, so said the national news last night. The population is growing and that is good news for those of us who will be drawing a pension when these little ones reach in the workplace.

So it was with great disappointment when I read the headlines of today’s newspaper “Pas de Baby-Boom Bourgogne!” Burgundy has traditionally been a big baby production unit, it was one way that money was brought into the region at the turn of the last century (18th - 19th that is) not by selling the babies, who were actually just a by-product of the real industry, but by exporting their mothers’ milk. The Morvan was famous for its wet nurses, they were used by the rich and famous all over Europe. The Jersey cow of the human world, their milk was said to be rich and nutritious, it is a pity their own babies didn’t get much of it. The women would have a baby, leave their baby with an old female relative and go and live with their new family for about 18 months, then they would return to their impoverished life in the Morvan for just enough time to produce another baby, then off again back to civilisation.

Leaving Burgundy seems to be as popular now as it was back then for the young. Which is what explains today’s headline. Work is not abundant and as more young people leave, the average age of the population goes up and the area becomes less and less attractive to the young. Without the young, babies will not be produced and even though the Burgundian women do their best and produce way above the national average, they apparently cannot keep up with this exodus.

Having said that, the women of Cormatin are made of much sterner stuff. The great announcement in the “Bulletin de Cormatin” (the annual review of all things important in our great metropolis) and also at the Mayor’s annual “meet and greet the population” last weekend, was that Cormatin is getting a new school. The infant/junior school which is split over Cormatin and Malay, is too small for the current number of school-age children and the projected numbers are even higher, so a new school is being built.



So our own little Baby Boom is bucking the Burgundy trend and long may it continue.

Visit La Tuilerie Website for more photos of what this area has to offer.