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The roots of Table d’Hôte can be found within the foundations of Gîtes de France which was started in 1951 by Emile Aubert with a pilot project in the lower Alps. The first Table d’Hôte was created in the first official Gîtes de France in the small rural hamlet called Chandal a la Javie.
Owned by stockbreeders and farmers, a small unused barn was converted into a lodge. This Gite was the first example what has now grown to a considerable tourist industry in France.
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A Table d’Hôte in it’s present form, as supported by the Gîtes de France organization, goes way back to the time just after World War II. In the ruins of Europe employment in the rural area’s of France was in a very bad shape. People from villages and small towns migrated to the big cities in search for a better life. The result was an empty countryside with little prosperity and backward development. Rural house fell to ruins and the countryside with it’s big agricultural industry started to loose it’s appeal.
In the meanwhile the working class in the bigger cities acquired more time and money to spend their holiday time in rural France. With the affordable Renault 4CV car, people started to flee city life and a tourism industry slowly started to emerge. At that time France was frantically modernized including a big reform of the ministry of tourism by Vincent Planque. Inspired by an initiative of Senator Emile Aubert, who on it’s own has instigated a pilot in the french Alps for a self catering Gite, both started working together.
With the main objective to safeguard the local habitat and to stop the rural exodus the ministry of Agriculture was involved for the clever funding of the Federation Nationale des Gites de France. With this momentum money came available to restore rural houses for tourism and thereby preventing the downfall of the rural area benefiting the agricultural industry also.
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