VIDEO. Escape game in the church, cabaret in the chapel: the ideas of a mayor of Béarn to save and revive the heritage of his village

Churches that are threatening to collapse in French villages will not be entitled to the same resources as Notre-Dame (846 million euros were collected after the 2019 fire) for their restoration. And there are thousands of them. Since the 1905 law on the separation of Church and State, it is the municipalities that are responsible for them.

In the heart of the Pyrénées-Atlantiques, Laàs, its 140 inhabitants, its church, its chapel… and its 400,000 euros of debt to renovate them. To pay part of it, the Saint-Barthélémy church has been hosting since the summer of 2023, with the agreement in principle of the diocese of Bayonne, a new kind of animation: an escape game that would bring in 10,000 euros per year.

Making the church contribute to attract tourists and repay its loans is the mayor's idea. "Putting 650,000 euros into a church just to restore it, when it will be closed 365 days a year, apart from the unfortunately numerous funerals, it was not an easy step to take financially," he justifies.

The building remains sacred, the participants, who pay 30 euros each, must respect the place, closed to the public during the game. That day, there are four players. In 60 minutes, they must solve puzzles to access the chalice. It is a failure… but they are not unhappy with this opportunity to set foot in a church again. And that a place of worship becomes the scene of a treasure hunt does not "shock" them so much.

Jacques Pédehontaà, mayor of Laàs for forty years, is not at his first extravagance. Top hat and bow tie, surrounded by two scarves (one blue-white-red, the other blue-red-yellow, in the colors of Béarn), the eccentric mayor welcomes the team of "Envoyé spécial" at the entrance to a village like no other.

Behind a blue barrier, a sentry box of the same shade displays this motto: "Passion and audacity". It is that of the principality of Laàs, self-proclaimed in 2014. Because before daring to open the church to an escape game, Jacques Pédehontaà erected the town into a principality and the town hall into a palace. The village even has its "alley of stars", the Laàs-Vegas Boulevard. Thirty-three stone stars in the name of the artists who performed in the castle park for the Transhumances musicales festival: Manu Chao, Maxime Le Forestier…

But it is at the exit of the village that the elected official's greatest pride is to be found: the 11th century Romanesque chapel, for its ancient history... as well as its recent history. "It hasn't been a chapel for a very long time," says the mayor. "It has been deconsecrated since 1893. And it was a ruin." A Catholic youth movement, the Guides de France, saved it. Today, one can read, in block letters on the stone: "The Red Ant."

This cabaret show, because that is the new function of the chapel, owes its name to the young girls of the Guides de France, called "Red Ants" because of their scarlet shirts. In seven years, 2,700 of them took turns to rebuild the chapel. Twenty years later, this reconversion is not lacking in audacity.

Excerpt from "Ruinous Churches in Ruins!", a report to be seen in " Envoyé spécial " on February 27, 2025.

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