Bataville in Moselle

Bataville, near Moussey in Moselle, was created by Mr Bata in 1931. He had his shoe business in Czechoslovakia and wanted to build more factories abroad.

The factory has produced shoes from 1932. On top of it, Mr Bata built houses for his employees, a grocery shop, a shoe shop (of course, I would say), a church, a school, a stadium and even a swimming pool. A swimming pool in the French country in the 1950s was very unusual. And buses used to carry employees from Nancy and country villages to the factory every day. All these facilities can be called paternalism, Mr Bata followed the example of Mr Ford I have read, but we must admit that it was really convenient.

The architecture of the buildings is typical of the 1930s and of the Bauhaus. There is another Bata factory in Canada, built in the same way. This place is called Batawa.

There have been up to 2,700 employees in the factory. In 2000, with only 840 workers, one million and a half pairs of shoes were still sold in France and abroad. The decision was taken in Canada in 2001 to close the factory in January 2002. We used to go there from time to time as shoes were less expensive at this shoe shop and the choice was more interesting than in the shop of Nancy.

After twelve years Bataville hasn't changed. I was quite surprised last week to discover the factory is still in good condition. There are a few small companies working in it and two years ago journalists said some people of the cinema business could be interested in this place. It would be a good idea to bring it back to life and I would like to visit this, of course.