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Yohan
The Ecovillage Trap
Nine years inside a French ecovillage, from its founding to its dissolution, told by one of its co-founders. Thousands of readers in France since July 2026. Now in English, for anyone who dreams of joining an intentional community, or already lives in one.
What really happens inside an intentional community
The land was never the problem. What broke us happened between us. I tell it from inside, scene by scene, and then what I understood after.
It starts with the money nobody dares to talk about: who pays, who owns, and what it does to a group when the answer stays vague. Then come the people who decide without any title, and the way power settles in a place that has no leader. There is the "we" that slowly erases you, until the day you stop saying what you think. There is what the departures do to the ones who stay. And at the end, the six questions of the REVEAL map, the ones I wish someone had asked me in 2016, before we bought the land.
Get the ebook now, with the extras only readers here receive
- PDF and EPUB, both included: the book exactly as it's printed, with the illustrations, plus a version for your Kindle, Kobo or reading app.
- No DRM. The files are yours, on every device, forever.
- The REVEAL map, the six questions to ask before you join any community, in a printable version you can take with you on a visit.
- Every future revision free. When the text is corrected or expanded, you get the new files by email.
- My monthly letter, in English. Each month, one subject about community life, looked at from the inside: why a collective tears itself apart, what we drag along without knowing it, money and departures, the "we" that slowly erases you, how to leave a place without breaking, what to ask on a first visit. In France, more than 13,000 readers receive it. You can simply reply, and we talk by email. I answer myself.
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The paperback (189 pages, with the drawings) and the Kindle edition are on Amazon. The buttons open Amazon.com, and the other countries are just below.
Can we stay in touch?
Amazon will not tell me who you are. If you leave me your email, you receive the first pages of the book now, and once a month my letter about community life in English. You can reply to every letter. I answer myself.
And a gift: when you finish the book, write me two or three lines by email about what stayed with you. To thank you for your words, I send you the REVEAL workbook, 20 pages of worksheets to prepare your visits (normally 14 €).
I send one letter a month, and you can leave with one click.
Self-published in July 2026 as Le Piège des Écolieux, with no publisher behind it.
Nine years inside the Pourgues ecovillage, from the first day to the last
I'm Yohan Sancerni. In 2016 I co-founded the Pourgues ecovillage, in Ariège, in the foothills of the French Pyrenees, and I lived there for nine years. Pourgues became one of the most visited and most filmed ecovillages in France: hundreds of thousands of visits to its website, story after story in the press, thousands of people who came to see for themselves whether it was possible, and in 2025 the solidarity tourism prize at the Résilient awards.
Pourgues was inspired by the Sudbury schools, democratic schools where children choose what they learn and where every member, child or adult, has one vote. We had founded the first one in France, and it became a huge success across the country.
And early in 2025, the collective dissolved. In between, I saw from very close how a community that had everything going for it comes apart, through decisions, money, departures and exhaustion, and through what each of us brings along without knowing it. I no longer have a place to fill or anyone to recruit, which leaves me free to write about what doesn't work, so that you can go in with your eyes open.
Today, in France, around 13,000 people read my newsletter, and 16,000 people follow me on Instagram and 12,000 on Facebook, where I keep writing about community life.
What French readers say about The Ecovillage Trap
It made me cry to recognize the difficulties and challenges that so often stay silent behind the beautiful ideal of the ecovillage. This book helped me see clearly what I'm living through.
An urgent read for anyone who wants to join an ecovillage knowing what they're getting into.
Honest, precise without being cold, warm without being naive.
Your book is essential at a time when ecovillages make so many people dream.
One of the co-founders of Pourgues shares his experience with rigor and simplicity.
A real gem of lucidity.