France: can 15th-century politics save a 21st-century French town?

From the Guardian: France: can 15th-century politics save a 21st-century French town?

Guardian Weekly editor Natalie Bennett has been in the small Burgundy town of Etang-sur-Arroux, checking out some newly uncovered history, and the hopes that some locals have for it

Etang-sur-Arroux is, most observers would agree, a nice little town, set at the confluence of two rivers, and the junction of several small, locally significant roads, surrounded by attractive, often hedged, fields of the deep graziers'-delight-green this part of Burgundy specialises in. It's an entry point for the Morvan national park, which does a steady trade these days in "nature" tourists – walkers, mountain cyclists and birdlovers, and most drivers on their way to the spectacular Gallo-Roman site of Bibracte will pass through it.

Etang-sur-Arroux even boasts, with multiple signs, of its clog museum, in which sits, in a special hut all of its own, "the world's largest clog".

Local second-home owners, of whom there are many, the Dutch predominant among them, know the town for its extensive Emmaus charity store – which does a roaring trade in the practical, the antique, and the frankly peculiar. (Fifties Teletext machine anyone?)

And now Etang-sur-Arroux has a new claim to fame, a rediscovered – or at least newly uncovered – major chateau dating back to the 12th century, Chateau de la Perriere. Cue much excitement (well a dozen or so local volunteers to help with the excavation), and a major article in the local daily newspaper announcing an evening at which the archaeologists will be presenting their findings about their ancestors' goings-on to the people of modern-day Etang-sur-Arroux.

The turnout is impressive – about 60 people might not quite fill the salle des fetes, but they do a good impression of it. Pretty well all of the life of the town is here.

Outside, the main street is closed, the two bars dark and silent. The only other sign of life is at the single remaining functioning hotel (cheap room rates and special offers available – and a justly famous Sunday lunch with cold buffet ). Two other hotels are out of business, one hopefully sporting a "to lease" sign, the other apparently rotting into the dust.

Like small towns the developed world over, Etang-sur-Arroux has a problem of economics, of existence. Earlier, waiting for the talk, I'd stopped down by the river, in the station car park, and here it was that the male youth (well youngish males) had gathered. Unlike I probably would in Britain, I didn't feel a sense of menace, but the "nothing for the youth to do" problem has clearly reached Etang-sur-Arroux.

The talk was, if you had an interest in archaeology, fascinating – the remaining ruined stones telling, if not a detailed tale, certainly enough to pique the interest. One claim to fame for the site is that it had, in two 15th-century constructions, octagonal defensive towers sat on circular foundations. Quite a challenge for the stonemason, and he's used fine, solid granite for the task, which has kept its shape with steadfast ease.

The experts have concluded that this later extension to a 13th-century original was almost certainly built by Nicholas Rolin – a man to get excited about for a lover of tales, as one of the chief architects of the 40-year reign of Burgundy's standout ruler Philip the Good.

But still, when I go to the open day at the site (pictured below) a few days later, I have to confess that while as an archaeological enthusiast I have a lovely time, a visitor with only an ordinary interest in history would just find a pile of old stones, with nothing romantic to colour their walls and complete their towers in the air: no "Marie Antoinette slept here (preferably with a paramour not the king)", no knights riding out to deadly battle. (Well they may have done; we just don't know about it.)

Yet still, I understood the passionate plea made at the end of the talk in the salle des fetes by Robert Chevrot, president of the Association of the La Tour du Bost, a nearby historic site. He pleaded for a local benefactor to come forward to help complete the excavation – ended before the complete circumference was cleared by a combination of weather and lack of funds – and for the town to embrace and promote the ruined chateau as a tourist attraction.

Could not Nicholas Rolin, who ensured with his hospital that Beaune was firmly on the tourist route, ride to Etang's rescue 600 years after his death?

The chateau can be visited at any time, although it isn't yet signposted. Coming from Le Creusot, just after the entrance to Etang follow the signs for "La Grotte", an uninteresting collection of religious statues that is, however, handily marking the chateau site, on the opposite side of the road. It is on an outcrop overlooking the modern village, and there is an information board setting out the main facts.