Rochefourchat, a quiet place to live
Let’s pay a special tribute to the 37,000 communes in France. The commune is the smallest administratve unit (like a local council) in France, and each has its own mayor (and usually at least one or more assistants).
The place in the photo is in a commune called Rochefourchat, and If you like a bit of peace and quiet it could be just the place for you – it is the least populated commune in France. The commune has no inhabitants which should make local elections quite straightforward as well.
“Shall we increase local taxes this year?”
“Um, no I don’t think so”
“Good, vote carried”.
Of course the lack of inhabitants hasn’t stopped Rochefourchat from having both a mayor and a mayor’s assistant – this is France you know – although I’m not sure who voted them into power. Set in the Drome department of the Rhone-Alps, the little place has a couple of claims to fame that will also entice you to this little lost corner.
1) In 1900 a popular song in France, called ‘The Fanfare of Rochefourchat’, was a bit of a bestseller and celebrated the towns fanfare;
2) Rochefourchat is a member of the ‘middle of nowhere’ art movement – a curious group of six locations worlwide that are listed as ‘phantom contemporary art centres’. I’m not sure if that’s impressive or not, but the village has a plaque to celebrate the fact and the ‘movement has a groovy website – see mofn.org
In fact there are a few French communes that have no inhabitants at all, following destruction in 1916 during the Battle of Verdun, but being the sole inhabitant of a commune completely destroyed by war has rather less ‘kerb appeal’.
Other trivia about communes: the first commune in France on an alphabetical list is Aast and the last is Zuytpeene. The one with the shortest name is called simply ‘Y’. You can also visit the communes of Ay, Bû, By, Eu, Fa, Gy, Oô, Oz, Py, Ri, Ry, Sy, Ur, Us and Uz.
I quite fancy the sound of Oô myself – a village in the heart of the Pyrenees.
Just found your blog, it’s right up my alley. I plan to sail to France and settle there for a while. Do you have any information on your blog about the logisitics of that and paperwork req’d etc?
Enoying what I have read so far, and burned your feed.
-ben
Hi, thanks for stopping by. Settling up in France for a while…that’s quite a big subject, but I couldn’t even begin to comment without knowing loads more? How long for? Are you European? do you need health cover…the number of issues if you are staying a long time, not European, and not planning to work might be quite extensive. Take a look around though, we might have said something useful along the way!
Cheers