the fight of Philippe, 63, to save his “little corner of paradise”

2024-02-12 11:53:44

Philippe’s cabin.
Pierre-Loeiz Thomas/Le Figaro

YOU, MY ROOF – Favorites, more or less crazy projects, struggles and capital gains… In this series, the French tell Figaro their real estate adventures. Installed in the shed built by his father in Port-Saint-Louis du Rhône, this former dockworker fights against nature and the administration.

Here, the shoes remain on the pontoon. “No one is going to take them from you”, smiles Philippe, going up the misaligned wooden sleepers to reach the banks of the Rhône. The former dockworker has an easy familiarity and an accent that smacks of the old port to make Fernandel jealous. “Do you see heaven?” he says without waiting for a response.

In the middle of the path plowed by the hooves of horses, wild boars or Camargue bulls, the sixty-year-old suddenly stops. “Don’t move, listen.” A few seconds pass, apart from the sound of the swans beating the water with their large legs to fly away, there is not a sound. “Do you hear this silence?”he finally blurted out, proud of his effect.

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