The story of the town of Parthenay, or the misfortunes of virtue

• Michel HERVÉ
  Former mayor, Parthenay
  
• Alain d’IRIBARNE
  Directeur de recherche au CNRS
  

Summary

Michel Hervé was mayor of Parthenay from 1979 until 2001, when he surprisingly lost the election with a final poll of 33 %, at a time when the economic development of the town had never thrived so well. During his time in office, he had launched a project to introduce cable networks to the town, which resulted in 40% of the urban population being connected to the Internet as opposed to an average of 17% for the rest of France. He was able to achieve this with the support of a European programme and important industrialists. Should his electoral defeat be interpreted as a rebellion by citizens against new information technologies ? According to the sociologist Alain d'Iribarne, this explanation is too simple. He suggests the situation can be interpreted as a combination of technical, psychological, sociological and political factors.

Summary translated from French by Rachel MARLIN.

• The entire article was written by Élisabeth BOURGUINAT.

To obtain this article, you can :

• download it for free in French (PDF help) or contact ecopar@paris.ensmp.fr (Reference EV060202).

The entire article appears in French in the Journal de l'École de Paris du management N° 36.