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

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.