"The fragile village" Breux by marco_ev

This is Breux. A tiny village in the north of France just 45 minutes west of Luxembourg. Breux is the northernmost village in the Meuse department; Belgium is only 4,5 kilometers away.
Only around 180 people live in Breux. That used to be a lot more; in 1850 there were 828 inhabitants. There was a butcher, a baker, a grocery store, four cafés, two woodmills, over 20 farms, all kinds of craftsmen, a school, a boarding school for catholic girls, etc. Now, there's nothing left of all that. Only the bakery has survived the depopulation of this part of the French countryside miraculously.
In fact, not just the bakery survived. It seems that now, in 2006, we might be able to say that the village as a whole survived a dark period of depopulation, two world wars and the decline of traditional agriculture in western Europe. Because breux seems to have had the worst bit; early 1990s there were only 156 inhabitants of Breux left (Breulots they call themselves). Now, there are around 180.
And on a nice hilly patch of land with a good view over the village, the surrounding valleys, forests and hills, Breux is building 15 villas for newcomers. Some Breulots are happy with that, others say it's too many houses and too many newcomers at once. But with densely populated and overexpensive Luxembourg only 45 minutes away, everyone could have seen that coming...
After the struggle for survival as a village, Breux is now facing a new struggle: that for survival as a community.

And of course Breux is not unique. Not at all. It's just one of thousands and thousands of small villages throughout the countryside of Europe. Too far from major economic and industrial centres to gently grow & find it's way in modern time. And too small and fragile to have anything to say about its own future.