“We are killing crafts in Montpellier”: stonemason Frédéric Matan still opposed to the ZFE

Stonemason Frédéric Matan was a bearer of the Olympic flame. Midi Libre – JEAN-MICHEL MART

Meilleur Ouvrier de France, elected to the Capeb, the craftsman denounces "an antisocial measure" that will "participate in downgrading Montpellier" and push craftsmen to increase their prices to come and work in the metropolis.

“One day I will end up coming to Montpellier by cart, like in the Middle Ages”. This is a creaking promise from Frédéric Matan. This stonemason based in Pouget, Meilleur Ouvrier de France (Mof) feels “trapped in the ZFE. I love Montpellier, everything in my family and professional history shows it, but here it is no longer possible”.

Frédéric Matan assures us without hesitation: “I love Montpellier. But not what it is becoming. We are playing with the craftsmen who will soon no longer be able to work in the city. They are yo-yoing with us, without clear rules. With the risk of fines, the impossibility of driving, the difficulties of parking, soon we will have to multiply the prices by three. Or else, it will be Indians who will do the building sites, but then we will have to say goodbye to excellence”, notes the angry craftsman. Who lets out: “We are killing the crafts in Montpellier“.

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“I can't replace my vehicles”

There is another problem for the craftsman: replacing his vehicles. He has a Renault Trafic which is Crit'Air2: “It's still OK but for how long? It's getting old and I can't afford to replace it”. He also has a dump truck for larger projects which is Crit'Air 5. But he can't afford to change it either. Besides, there is no equivalent to these trucks in electric version: “And for traffic, with the electric I can go to a construction site but I can only do the outward journey, not the return”, he says ironically.

According to Frédéric Matan, the ZFE project must be postponed, “sit around the table and think intelligently”. Not impose tailor-made measures, ever more coercive: “Montpellier will have to do without the excellence of professionals who will no longer come and the city will be downgraded. I regularly speak with craftsmen who no longer want to come to the center”, he says.

However, the craftsman's CV is more than eloquent. Mof, the Olympic torchbearer this summer, the stonemason has renovated many listed buildings in the Comédie: Monoprix, the old post office, the CIC bank, the facades of the Maison des Relations Internationales and even recently the carving of two pilasters intended to adorn the facade of the Pathé Gaumont.

His great-grandfather, Emile Matan, three times deputy in Montpellier during the time of François Delmas, has a street named after him on the side of the avenue de Lodève… And he would like Montpellier's elected officials to return to more wisdom.

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