The Building of Ageing-Well Territories: Reorganizations of Thermatology and Municipal Government in France. The Case of Bagnoles de l’Orne (Normandy)
After World War II, French thermal cure centres came to be considered as territories where diseases and ailments linked to ageing were dealt with as the period was also that of the implementation of the Social Security and the repayment of mineral water cures by the Health Insurance. Nevertheless, the medical service offered by thermal care was challenged by the public authorities in the 1990s. This threat hastened the mobilization of thermatology’s players who organized themselves nationally in order to defend its interests to the State. Doing so, they aimed at reminding people of their legitimacy and expertise in terms of treating age-related ailments. But they also took up the paradigm of “getting old well” and “active ageing”, which they considered as a chance to boost a weakened business because of the dramatic decrease of thermal cure centres. This reorganization of French thermatology can be analyzed at a local scale through the case of Bagnoles de l’Orne’s thermal cure centre, located in Normandy. The modernization of the business was largely accompanied and oriented by the elected representatives who were willing to make the territories attractive, and it disrupted former agreements. Thus, two ways of growing old tend to coexist on this territory. Constantly looking for ways of adapting the cure to recent stakes in public health, thermatology professionals wish to keep welcoming old and ill patients. But a new approach of ageing also developed: centred on prevention, physical activity and well-being for healthy and solvent people, it goes alongside an increasing pressure laid on successful ageing.