“I can buy myself floooowers”. Bouquet of firecracker red roses in her hands, Jade does not fail to apply the maxim that Miley Cyrus has been humming all summer. Yes, but flowers from where? The thirty-year-old doesn’t know that. However, Jade is fussy. She readily admits, her average shopping basket has everything of the “typical Parisian bobo”. Only organic, “Made in France” preferably local IDF, seasonal and only vegetarian. All that was missing was a self-diagnosed gluten intolerance.
Reflexes “which should be the norm to take care of your ecological balance sheet a little” she pleads, but which she forgets as soon as she leaves in search of a bouquet for her interior. She arrives at the florist in a whirlwind, grabs her flowers without asking any questions, pays and takes off like lightning.
Where are the blue, white, red flowers?
Let’s face it, when it’s time to pick up our tulips and other wreaths, most of us are potential Jades. 85% of flowers purchased in France are imported, deplores Hélène Taquet, co-founder of the French Flower Collective, which brings together more than 600 players in the sector and is determined to reverse the trend. Your vases are filled with foreigners from the Netherlands, Belgium, but also from much more distant destinations, such as Kenya or Colombia. And if discussions emerge more and more on the collective suicide of eating tomatoes in winter or of swallowing five avocados from the ends of the world every week, the question remains unthought in the floral field. Sébastien, florist, doesn’t hide it. For him, a flower is made to be beautiful, not to present a controlled designation of origin. “The customer doesn’t care, why would that be a concern for us? The Netherlands delivers quickly, inexpensively and well. And even if we wanted to, where can we find French flowers? »
A point for him. By giving in to the Dutch sirens, the French flower market has withered. Hélène Taquet dives back into her lists: while there were more than 8,000 French producers at the start of the 1980s, there are now only 400. Largely insufficient to supply the country’s 10,000 florists. Faced with this situation, closer to a field of ruins than tulips, the Collective then launched the operation remontada. This Sunday will be the third French Flower Day, at the same time as Heritage Days – you will understand the tribute.
The false poppy syndrome
Constantly on the move, with a determined look and calm voice, Mathilde Bignon, co-founder of the café-florist boutique Désirée, in Paris, seems to consist only of will and elbow grease. However, even the hyper-active member of the Collective knows that the challenge promises to be immense: “Our difficulty is that we are trying to solve a little-known problem. Since flowers have an image of fragile and ephemeral things, customers think that they necessarily come from France. » Having all had the child’s experience of seeing a poppy wilt three hours after having torn it from a field, “we say to ourselves that a flower cannot come from the end of the world. There is a lack of general culture on the subject, most French people are unaware of their seasonality or their diversity.”
The opportunity for her to praise this famous tricolor heritage: peonies, anemones, celosia… Blue, white, red flowers, but also yellow, green or purple. “We can make all types of bouquets,” she assures. I want us to import refrigerators because we don’t have factories in France. But flowers, frankly…” Proof that there is more than just Amsterdam in life, the entrepreneur goes to pick up her new bouquets from a flower farm in Vitry-sur-Seine, a few minutes from the Paris ring road. Not really the place where you would imagine seeing petals, greenery and beauty.
Less consumption, more “slow flower”
And yet, Félix, founder of the place, indeed navigates between cosmos, zinnias and other didiscus, a new colorful demonstration of the possible diversity. But not everything is rosy when you start local production. The farm has been in existence for two years and is only beginning to provide a beautiful production. Some months are almost devoid of flowering – May and June in particular, and as explosive as the spectacle in the gray of Vitry is, not all the flowers grow there. But a new contrast with the ring road: here, we praise patience and long time.
A movement “slow flower” which will also require some changes on the part of the consumer. “We’ll have to forget about roses for Valentine’s Day or even in winter,” says Mathilde. Lilies can be grown for three weeks a year. Orchids are boring. It’s like everything, we’ll have to learn to stop consuming willy-nilly. » Before reassuring, a bit cynical: “I guarantee you that we can live without roses in February”.
Mathilde believes in this paradigm shift. On the way back, the trunk full of bouquets, her gaze wanders into the distance, less focused on the road than on the future she imagines. “There, we bring florists into the movement as pioneers. And when the sector is cleaned up, we will embark on another project. » After Miley Cyrus in the intro, let’s finish with pure local product too. Edmond Rostand : “Be pleased with the flowers, the fruits, even the leaves; If it’s in your own garden that you pick them.”