Taxis by the thousands, lost youth, two-tone colors: the Coups de béret of Saturday, May 24 are served!

Find our satirical echoes and Duverdier's drawing every Saturday in your newspaper "Sud Ouest" Béarn and Soule edition and on sudouest.fr

Horns, firecrackers: the least we can say is that taxi drivers know how to make their demands heard. All week, thousands of drivers from Nouvelle-Aquitaine, Occitanie, and also Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes have been holding the siege of the city of Pau, seeking to meet with the mayor and Prime Minister, François Bayrou. Their efforts seem to have paid off, as the Prime Minister, accompanied by his Minister of Transport, will receive a delegation in Paris this Saturday. In the meantime, the taxi drivers have warned: if the meeting doesn't satisfy them, "we'll stay here, we have nothing to lose." Meanwhile, another profession will also be demonstrating its discontent in Pau this Saturday: the National Police, which is heavily represented to supervise the taxi movement. If all the social movements in France and (the Kingdom of) Navarre are joining forces, wouldn't this be a tremendous boost for the cafe and hotel industry?

Call it fate, serendipity, or even a coincidence. Whatever the expression, sometimes people resonate in a moment of suspended grace. And grace truly fell this Thursday, May 22, at the headquarters of the Pyrénées-Atlantiques Socialist Party federation in Pau. While the region's elected officials eagerly awaited their first secretary, Olivier Faure, invited for a simple book signing session, the latter found himself, in just half an hour, megaphone in hand, championing the mobilization of taxis in Pau. A communications agency couldn't have done things better. Through this chance encounter, the taxi unions benefited from the elected official's national notoriety. Their first victory! Where Olivier Faure was able to seize on a current issue to reaffirm his political convictions to activists (perhaps not among the taxi drivers themselves, but who knows...) who will soon be called upon to vote for the renewal of their leader. Strike!

Following a new six-month phase of renovations, the Salies-de-Béarn thermal baths, renamed Selya Resort Thermal & Spa, reopened their doors on Monday, May 19. The establishment welcomed its first spa guests: 280 are currently enjoying the benefits of the salt water, and a total of 2,700 are expected this year. The salt city's reputation is well established among those suffering from rheumatism, among other conditions. But given the average age of the first beneficiaries of the treatment, it seems that the newly targeted female population, particularly those with fertility problems, is not yet fully present. The baby boom is here. Soon the baby boom?

Usually so calm, the village of Labastide-Monréjeau, in western Béarn, recently became animated by a quarrel between the former mayor, Yves Piednoir, and the current one, Jean-Simon Leblanc. The former attacked the local urban plan drawn up by the latter's municipal council. He accuses the document's authors of having evaded opinions during the public inquiry and of having committed several legal errors. For his part, Jean-Simon Leblanc opposes his predecessor. The latter is a curmudgeon who jumps at every opportunity to add his two cents to municipal management. Of course, the protagonists' surnames are laughable and seem to pit them against each other in a perfectly Manichean struggle. What if, deep down, the reality were more prosaic, more nuanced? Urban planning in the 21st century is a complicated subject, prone to error, especially when it is laced with endless administrative regulations. Yves Piednoir certainly doesn't seem to be the easy-going type. What if, as Nougaro sang, "black and white are as similar as two peas in a pod"?