By Nerea González
Montreuil, France, Jan 13 (EFE).- A bakery on the outskirts of Paris is combining traditional French pastry with anti-capitalist political idea.
La Conquête du Ache (The Conquest of Bread) takes its identify from a textual content written by probably the most famend anarcho-communist political analysts, Russian Peter Kropotkin.
“We’re the house owners of our work, there aren’t any intermediaries or employers that benefit from it,” Mexican Ricardo Alvarado, one of many six employees presently working the bakery, tells Efe in an interview.
Situated on a road nook within the city of Montreuil, simply over half an hour by public transport from the middle of Paris, the bakery was inaugurated in 2010 impressed by the philosophy of Kropotkin.
Thomas Anestoy and Pierre Pawin, founders of the challenge, needed to show how employees can self-manage and grasp that almost all fundamental of human requirements — bread.
“The essential factor is to point out that the mannequin works, which you could work with out a boss and which you could promote bread at costs accessible to everybody (…),” says Bertrand Boulmé, one other of the employees.
Anestoy and Pawin not work at La Conquête du Ache, however different groups have been caring for the challenge.
“For us, the essential factor is to not make cash, it’s to not get wealthy. The aim is to pay the lease, pay the suppliers and pay ourselves. There isn’t any capitalist goal, solely price effectiveness,” says Boulmé.
Montreuil is a historically working-class and immigrant space, though employees say it has been gentrified in recent times.
The bakery affords a “regular” and a “disaster” worth checklist for a similar merchandise, making it appropriate for these on a restricted finances
The French bakery’s star product, the artisanal baguette — just lately listed by UNESCO as an intangible cultural heritage — has a lowered worth of 0.75 euros and one euro for all different clients.
Different companies promote baguettes for greater than 1.20 euros, and even for 1.60 euros, in the costliest locations in Paris, however within the face of inflation, La Conquête du Ache has determined to maintain the baguette at one euro.
“For electrical energy, we had been paying a invoice of 700-800 euros and the November invoice was 1,600 euros,” says Alvarado.
This Christmas, bakers in France led protests in opposition to the federal government of president Emmanuel Macron for extreme power costs.
In response, on January 6, the French president introduced reduction measures for small companies, to keep away from, amongst different issues, an additional rise within the worth of bread.
Holding this “anarchist enterprise” afloat in 2023 is “exhausting”, the bakers themselves admit, however it’s for them a preferable choice to being accountable to a boss.EFE
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