On Wednesday 6 September 2017, the foundation stone for the Maison Cocagne was laid in Vauhallan (Essonne), at a ceremony attended by all the project’s partners, including the Eiffage Foundation.

Located on the site of a former farm run by the Benedictine community at the nearby Saint-Louis du Temple Abbey, in the Plateau de Saclay area, the Maison Cocagne will group together the Jardin de Cocagne de Limon, a market garden that employs people who are alienated from the workplace, an organic, local, solidarity restaurant that will employ people on social and professional integration schemes, the Jardins de Cocagne national training centre, accommodation, as well as the association’s offices. The project is due to open in September 2018.

The Jardins de Cocagne network includes 120 organic market gardens that fight against exclusion and poverty by supporting 4,000 gardeners on social and professional integration schemes all over France.

It was an opportunity for Xavier Lanthiez, executive director of the Eiffage Foundation, to express the Foundation’s support for the project, following on from successful local-level partnerships with various Jardins de Cocagne in Salles-sur-Garonne (Haute-Garonne), Saint-Just-Saint-Rambert (Loire) and Sentheim (Haut-Rhin).