An affinity with trees, silviculture, often seems to go with statesmanship and the higher politics. Bismarck comes to mind here Gladstone, too. Parnell grew up, among woodlands, but do wet have a record of his love of trees? We certainly have that for Charles Haughey. And, in the case of Francois Mitterand, this was a constant theme. A friend, driving towards Charles de Gaulle airport, pointed out at" small group of trees standing in an open space. Cedars, from memory. "Those were going to be cut down" he said, "but Mitterrand countermanded the, order and the Figaro newspaper this week wrote about a refuge he had in the Landes, that strip along the Atlantic coast which, beginning about two centuries, ago, was turned from a waste land, or at least a bleak uncultivated area, into a coniferous forest, stretching hundreds of miles. Many Irish visitors to France, will have been through these forests not always impressive in height or girth of tree, but impressive in number, and here and there, at the coastline, small holiday settlements as well as the native habitations. And to think that even in the middle of the last century, shepherds had to go around on stilts. And to hold back the sand dunes, the planters set up palisades and sowed seed of pine, broom and whins under cover of loose branches.
The late French President had a refuge in the southern part of the forest. Near the village of Messanges and the Lac d'Azur. The mayor of Messanges, Albert Bouhine, according to the Figaro often helped Mitterrand, who had to be, personally involved in the action. He planted oaks, said the mayor pines and lime trees. He also wanted acacias for the bees, because Madame Mitterrand produced honey there.