If the national Front invited me I'm there

That day, Pierre Rabhi traces once again his route to the trainees of the mas de Beaulieu. "I am obliged to gush", it smiles without fatigue. In this property of the association land and humanism that it founded, racing landscape, profs, Sunday gardeners, engineers in conversion from Cevennes Ardèche to learn about agro-ecology. Since 2001, banging of compost, the association has transformed into Garden one hectare of this limestone blotting only vines accepted to fertilize. It is the history of Pierre Rabhi, this child not born in an Algerian oasis, seventy years later, two at - will.

Raised by a European family, he fled his country in adolescence to Paris, became worker then bank employee. The Glorieuses thirty offer opulence and full employment, but Pierre Rabhi is already detected the bacteria from a moral and ecological crisis. With his wife, Paris, they join the Ardèche, clearing a few acres and support without electricity fifteen years reinventing agriculture full sinking. In 5 children, the Earth eventually deliver its fruit, but family Rabhi puts the brake on production: "We've always wanted to release the free time to music, reading and writing," he says. The peasant sharpens his reflections in Aurelius, Teilhard de Chardin, Osborn, devours the philosophy of history, and replace its agro-ecology in a political discussion it akin to humanism. It binds friendship with musician Yehudi Menuhin and took advantage of his complicity with Thomas Ankara to raise 100,000 farmers in Burkina Faso.

Sincere and authentic

It is this early risk taking, this radicalism and very concrete results that drain him, 50 times a year, a thousand people, as in La Rochelle recently rooms. The Publisher Actes Sud reprints his old books, claims of expertise tributary France, Africa, Asia. "I think that it is the sincerity, authenticity of my experience that touches people."He converted to the Orthodox monastery of Solan Agroecology home, inspiring in Romania the same approach in 400 Catholic monasteries. SNCF asked Council. Michel Valentin contractor brings it in a centre for training in the ecology of 55 hectares, the Amanins in the Drôme. The Princess of Polignac, who manages a large 100 hectares of fields and Woods in Britain, seeking his help to rehabilitate its land. CET students, Polytechnique come the visit, "in search of meaning".

Curiosity WINS to Medef, who invited him to his summer University in a few days, he who swear by the (happy) sobriety, he deplored "the soldiers of the economy that are formed at the school" and judge the growth as the problem, not the solution. An "opening" to the enemy which disturbs its troops. "If the national Front invited me, I'm there." I decline to assume the fate of someone. "I saw many people change after a meeting," he replies. Refuses to optimism, citing Bernanos, he finds the awakening of many consciences before all these signals. "I'm amazed by all the work and the challenge that start in civil society."Like his friend Nicolas Hulot, Pierre Rabhi wants to create a foundation for projects which are multiplying. "Diagnostics and many solutions are known, it must take action.Even if swallowing a few contradictions, his car a ton and a half and a few air travel.