In L’enfant du désert , a book he has written for children, Pierre Rabhi shares the story of his own life and his ideas about the planet. Interview with the agroecologist who calls for a “consciousness insurrection”.

Knowing that childhood is a decisive period in life, how did yours, so poetically described in this book, determine the choices you later made? What path led you to the simplicity you urge people to adopt?

Each of us, including you and I, has their own path, their own destiny. I was born in the Sahara Desert, near Morocco’s southern border. That’s where my human adventure began. Painfully at first, because my mother died when I was four, and then I started walking along my path. My father, who had high hopes for my future, entrusted me into the care of a French couple who were working nearby at the time, and I soon found myself midway between two cultures: traditional Moroccan culture and French culture – and that’s where I have remained. In other words, I embarked on a road that became my path