Welcome to Le Creuse in the depths of deepest France. We are in a rural “Bermuda Triangle between Limoges, Clermont Ferrand and Tulle. It’s the kind of place you come to come to get away from everything, because there is nothing but endless forest, abandoned farms and sparsely populated villages. None of the services and infrastructures that we take for granted. You can’t hop on a bus, or nip down the shops or go to the cinema. If you don’t have a car, you are dead. It is places like this that the Yellow Vest movement was born. Peripheral France, so far from everything. Those parts of France that are screaming out for help in their death throes. Despite the desolation and loneliness, the place is hauntingly beautiful. A few photos of where I have spent the last couple of weeks for work. I took these photos on March 16th as Paris once again errupted in rioting – all that seems so far and so irrelevant down here.

Local Landscapes

A couple of local “shops”

This is a land of spooky churches. You need faith to live here.

Military camps

Agricultural clichés.

Nightlife

Historical

War memorial. 73 names on the war memorial in Magnat l’Etrange. 73 local sons who gave their lives in the Great War from a village that counted 2000 souls and numerous shops. Now, 300 souls.

All photos taken in and around La Courtine, Felletin, Magnat l’Etrange and Chavroche, Ussel and Clairvaux. Photos inpsired by one of my favourite photographers; Raymond Depardon.

Thanks for looking