• The shepherdess and shepherdess collective PastorX and the Black PatouX have released a song and a rap clip entitled "Dog Niche" to denounce the working conditions in which they have been working for years.
  • Four square meters for two, no drinking water and even less sanitation. They want to be given more consideration, especially by the national parks that have made these huts available.
  • For its part, the Vanoise park in Savoie, directly targeted by the collective, responded to work on other solutions of pastoral huts.

A hut of four square meters at more than 2,000 m altitude, in the mountains, to share with two. Not enough to shower or eat. This is not the new challenge of a youtuber but the daily life of some shepherds and shepherdesses in mountain pastures, especially in national parks for "a dozen years". Tired of not being heard by those responsible, they decided to denounce their working conditions in song.

"In this way, we will finally be listened to a little," says Fanny of the PastorX and the Black PatouX collective, who initiated the project with Noémi and Félix. The song is a tool to promote causes that we want to defend and for which we have not been heard for years. In parallel, a petition was launched to support their demands.


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Their first title, entitled "Dog Doghouse", has just been released and already has 30,000 views. "It's pastoral rap," says Felix, smiling, "it's never been done before. It came spontaneously and in the end, it was what seemed to us the most corresponding with our rant. »

"Our lives are at stake"

A "rant" that actually hides much more serious claims than a desire to make the buzz. "Our lives are at stake," says Fanny. The one who has been practicing for five years, recalls that, when one is "guardian of flocks and in alpine pastures", one is in charge of hundreds of ewes, which must be kept, fed, protected. "We have to get up at night in case of an attack," she says. We have to be with the herd all the time and therefore sleep next to it during the season [from two to fifteen weeks]." Hence the need for decent housing. She also notes that last summer, the Labour Inspectorate checked shepherds' huts in the departments of Hautes-Alpes and Alpes-de-Haute-Provence and that "none were up to standard".

"There are these niches as we see in the clip but also caravans with holes or marabouts, quotes the 38-year-old. These houses are poorly insulated, poorly heated. Shepherds and shepherdesses are intoxicated, are victims of digestive problems because of the lack of drinking water. She adds: "There is no family life possible. All this raises questions about how we can exercise over time. We are talking about human lives. »

"We don't want to let go of the job without changing it"

In addition to housing, shepherds record the volunteer hours they work. "We work 70 hours a week on 44-hour contracts," says Fanny. And the equipment is at their expense as well as their dogs.

"It is for all these reasons that many do a little job and then abandon it, says the shepherdess. This is a danger for the profession that needs transmission and long-term investment. Especially since pastoralism really has its place. An observation shared by the 33-year-old shepherd. He wants to react now to imagine an "exemplary" future, which respects a territory, the flora, the animals that populate it, the flocks and their shepherd.

"Pastoralism contributes to the preservation of the environment, the maintenance of spaces and the maintenance of a benevolent and respectful human presence in the mountains as well as in the plains. We do not want to let go of the profession without changing it. Behind us, there will be no more dog houses, there will be shepherds considered, "he hopes.

Any changes to come?

But for that, you have to put the means. For PastorX and the Black PatouX, there is a "real gap" between the resources put by national parks for "image and tourism" and those invested for the people who work on the premises.

The Vanoise National Park, in Savoie, directly targeted by the collective, has eleven "dog houses" that have been deployed since 2005. Through a statement, he explains that these helicopter emergency shelters are used to "provide a rapid and temporary response to herders pending the restoration or construction of real housing." While conceding that the "finalization of these achievements" is sometimes "long" and that the shelters are "particularly spartan". The park then indicates that it is considering other pastoral hut projects.

"The wolf has been in all the pastures for more than twenty years and we still have no lasting solutions," says Felix dissatisfied. "If national parks hadn't done it, no one would have dared to design such housing."

While waiting for "things to move", PastorX and the Black PatouX plans to release an album with notes of rap but also punk, marine and traditional songs whose theme will remain the profession of shepherdess and shepherd.

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