Very high voltage line project in Gard: “It should not get out of hand…”

It’s a project that continues to generate a lot of ink. The new 400,000 volt overhead line linking Jonquières-Saint-Vincent to the industrial site of Fos-sur-Mer has at least one merit: that of creating a political union against it.

A political union

From the left of Juan Martinez, president of the Beaucaire Terre d’Argence community of communes to the far right RN of Julien Sanchez, mayor of Beaucaire (and future European deputy?), all agree to refuse that Gard serve as a “electrical outlet” in Bouches-du-Rhône. And takes on all the inconveniences linked to the installation of 125 pylons 60 meters high on a 40 km route, without gaining much benefit…

“It is rather good and rather normal that we have unanimity, both at the level of economic actors, tourism, agricultural, political and citizens, estimates Juan Martinez, also mayor of Bellegarde. At a minimum, the State must listen to what we have to say. It’s not okay and not fair what’s happening.” Because the summary of the investigating commissioner which has just been published leaves little room for doubt about the progress of this very high voltage line (THT). Which, despite the horns and cries coming from Gard, leaves the prefect of the Paca region inflexible. Christophe Mirmand recently indicated to our colleagues at La Tribune, “hear these oppositions”, but remaining “convinced of the necessity of this project”.

“The company remained deaf to the arguments”

“We don’t hold a consultation just to say that we listened to people and then say goodbye, it’s over,” plague Juan Martinez. Indeed, the 1,000 contributions and more which came to fuel a prior consultation called “fountain”, will have led the investigating commissioner to recognize that he… could not transcribe all of the oppositions. Enough to allow RTE, manager of the electricity transmission network, maneuvering to build this THT, to rush into the breach opened with its report on the “Lessons and measures taken following the Prior Consultation”: “The company has remained deaf to the arguments and requests to adapt the project to reduce its multiple negative impacts and has not made any improvements to its initial proposal,” regrets the Association for the Protection of the Land of Argence (Asta).

“Unsurprisingly, everything is going well in the best of all possible worlds for them and the choices are the right ones, Juan Martinez outbids. Any different technical solution is ruled out because it is too expensive, or because it is supposedly impossible, even if it has been done elsewhere. They tell us, ultimately, that Gard is positively impacted since we have 1,200 employees working in the Fos-Berre area, 3,200 for the Pays d’Arles. It would legitimize our territory to take on the inconveniences and for the Fos-berre area to recover the tax component and all the resources due to this reindustrialization!”

“It shouldn’t get out of hand”

For Asta, as for the elected officials of Gard, “the State and RTE being clearly not up to the challenges and the consultation not having produced the expected effects, the associations and citizens opposed to the project will now have to consider what are the means to be implemented to achieve make the State and RTE change course.”

While a new gathering is planned for the beginning of June Carole Delga joins the concert of protests: the president of the Occitanie Region sent a letter to the prefect of the Paca Region and to RTE, marking her “opposition and its incomprehension” on this file. “I also told the prefect of Gard (who, according to our information, should soon meet with his counterpart on this subject, Editor’s note) that, even if he was not primarily concerned, he too risked receiving inconvenience without having control of the file, given that the definition of the zone of least impact will be decided in June by the prefect of the Paca Region, announces Juan Martinez, who does not underestimate the citizen reaction: