This is a "political" film with no axe to grind. An election campaign and local zoning decisions simply serve as a backdrop for an ironic reflection on the role of chance in history, starting with the ambitions of a village mayor. Although the portrait of the palce and its inhabitants is realistic enough - sometimes bordering on a documentary - the anecdote is pure ficion. It goes without saying, as the saying goes, that "the events recounted in this film and the characters who appear in it bear no connection, direct or otherwise, with real people or events".
It seems that the (imitation) mayor of Saint-Juire en Vendée, Julien Dechaumes, elected on the socialist ticket, had a grandiose project. He wanted to endow his village with an athletic and cultural center that would include pool, open-air theater, library, record library, video library, exhibition room - an arts complex called a "mediathèque". The mayor's Paris connections enable him to find the required funds. Everything seems to be going well and would continue to go well, if only...