"I can buy myself floooowers". With a 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 and 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 other side 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.
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