French pensioner eats from dumpsters

During his walks around Nice, photographer Eric Gaillard noticed an elderly man who was fishing for food from dumpsters near a supermarket. Eric met an old man, 87-year-old Eugene, and made this report about him. A proud but practical pensioner receives 1,000 euros a month from the state, which is very small money by European standards, but thanks to his “hunting” for food in the trash, he manages to save most of his pension.

(Total 21 photos)

1. Eugene, an 87-year-old French pensioner, rummages through a trash can in search of food.

2. For several years, Eugene has been eating discarded food.

Photographer Eric Gaillard says: “Walking home one evening, I unwittingly witnessed a scene I could never have imagined in a country as wealthy as France: several people were rummaging through the garbage cans of a supermarket in search of food.

Despite the difficulties that this may have involved, I decided to take the initiative and meet these people face to face. That day, I noticed an elderly man waiting for something on a city bench. I quickly realized that he was waiting for a dumpster from a nearby neighborhood supermarket to be rolled out onto the street. I approached him with a camera on my shoulder and tried to strike up a conversation, but he immediately sharply exclaimed: “Leave me alone, don’t you dare shoot me!”

3. Eugene demonstrates the edible "finds" he found in the trash can.

“I sat down next to him and tried to change the direction of our conversation in the hope of gaining his confidence. It is clear that what I was going to ask him about, it was difficult to agree. We talked about other things, and at some point he opened up to me, said that his name was Eugene (Eugene), that he was 87, and that the first time he rummaged through the garbage in search of food during the war, when he was twelve . “Things were hard,” he told me with a sigh. Eugene admitted that the money he saves by eating food waste allows him to pay for a flight to Thailand once a year to see his “girlfriend.”

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5. “Suddenly, a supermarket employee appeared with a dumpster. At that very moment, forgetting about everything in the world and regardless of his age, Evgeny jumped up and quickly moved towards the bunker. He had to compete with two other types who were also waiting for this moment. I followed him with a camera. He turned to me and asked, "Don't show my face." I decided to respect his desire to remain unrecognized and just started shooting close-ups of the entire scene while the others were rummaging around in the garbage can for food. The container was promptly emptied and immediately refilled.”

6. The loot wasn't that bad: fruit, milk, a box of unsorted eggs.

7. Eugene, 87-year-old French pensioner, is found in the trash can food.

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9. "I kept filming Eugene while he was packing food into bags. He didn't mind. Then he moved away and I followed him. I asked if he was going home, but to my surprise he loaded the bags into his old car and told me that he was now heading to another supermarket. I asked if I could follow him and he said yes."

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11. “When we arrived at the second supermarket, he warned me: “There is still a gang of Romanians grazing here – they are waiting for people like me. between groups of people who compete for food waste with people like Evgeny.I got the camera ready for filming.It was clear from the look of the audience that I was not particularly welcome here.I stayed on the sidelines, and after an hour of waiting, the dumpsters arrived at the point from the hangar. Eugene was not so agile, and the Romanians attacked the container with a vengeance. Eugene did everything possible to snatch at least part of the food. The impression was that I was watching wild cats or sharks while feeding."

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14. "At some point, I realized that in the heat of the fight they simply stopped noticing me. I circled around the garbage cans without any problems. Sometimes someone accidentally bumped into me, and then rudeness and curses rained down on me. Very soon Eugene He let me know that there was nothing else to look for.Because I was with him all the time in this crazy fight, there was an atmosphere of mutual trust between us.He got into the car to return home, and I followed him.I asked "Is it possible to enter his apartment, but he categorically opposed this. Then I said that I would like to see him again tomorrow."

15. Eugene cooks dinner from food he found in trash cans.

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17. We met with Eugene over the next few days. I photographed him while he sorted through the garbage from the neighboring supermarkets, with one thought: oh, if he would invite me to his place so that I could watch how he cooks food from the garbage he found. Finally, I managed to convince Evgeny, and he allowed me to photograph him in his kitchen - but only in the kitchen. “The rest of my apartment is a terrible mess.” I said to myself: “He will change his mind”, but the next day he invited me to his place, where a dark, narrow corridor led us to a small kitchen.

18. Eugene proudly opened the refrigerator to show his findings. The refrigerator was full of food. Some of the products seemed familiar to me - weren't they the ones Evgeny had scooped out of the containers in my presence over the past few days? He took out a carton of eggs and showed me his omelet recipe. We talked a little, then he asked me to leave. Eugene wanted his private life to remain inviolable.

19. Eugene unloads food found in trash cans from the car.

“Completing my work, I asked Evgeny what I could please him with. "Portrait," he replied. “What kind of portrait?” I asked. “Well, my snapshot of me rummaging around for food in a trash can. When I am quite old, this will be a good memory for me.” The next day I gave him four photographs. He was excited and showed them to his "colleagues" in emptying containers. He spoke to me on “you”, as with an old acquaintance, and in parting we made the final tour of the supermarkets in search of food.”

20. That's when I found out that he usually waits until dark to unload packages of food from the trunk of his car: he doesn't want to catch the eye of his neighbors.

21. An 87-year-old French pensioner is resting on a bench.

“Yevgeny is a proud but practical man, as he has to subsist on just 1,000 euros ($1,300) a month. In the end, he confessed to me that during all these days that we spent together, he thought that I was from the police. With his savings from eating garbage, he is going to travel very far one day - somewhere in the direction of Las Vegas.