Chez Salah – Roubaix – France

– September 9, 2011

The café should have been destroyed to make place for brand new modern buildings. But Salah has always been living and working there. So he did not want to leave. “They will not get my café when i am still alive” he told me. Probably in the end, he will manage to stay and his old café will be surrounded by cutting-edge glass buildings in 2/3 years time. I think it is quite cool. His son is ready to take over… I was thinking to invite some people/jetset/vip to organize a party there, profit all for Salah to make him survive until the end of the renovations.

Interesting topic to me as well cause in China, he would have been pushed out for sure. That is what I told him. Lucky he was in France and not in China photographer, china, shanghai, photo

“Pourquoi aller ailleurs quand chez nous c’est meilleur ?”. Written on a sign in the café. Salah is French from north african origins. I am French living in China. Meaning of the sign is: why going elsewhere when it is better at home ?

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About Eric Leleu

I have been living in China as a photographer for a few years. My brain is obsessed by concepts such as authority, consumerism, capitalism, geopolitics, sociology or urbanity... In a word, I am interested in our contemporaries (you and I) and the world as it becomes. My focus is the dynamics of public spaces: the interrelationship between the authority, the crowd and the individual. As for my eye, it is looking for colors and intensity. My dream is simple: having a few of my photos living longer than me...