This Monday, November 4, 500 elected officials from Gard and Bouches-du-Rhône meet in Arles. There is strong winds against a decision of the State, communicated via the Prefects of the two departments: a revision of the Rhône Plan, which aims to secure and renovate through works the dikes which protect the Camargue du Rhône in the event of high water and floods.
The Rhône Plan, implemented in 2004, provided for 400 million euros of work220 million were used to secure the 73 km of levees between Beaucaire, Tarascon, Arles and Fourques. Work on the part between Fourques and Sylvéréal (a hamlet of Vauvert) was due to begin in 2025, but issue : “Instead of building the 56 kilometers of dike that we have left, the State is proposing that we build 8km on the left bank and 8km on the right bank of the Rhône.” explains Gilles Dumas, mayor of Fourques and president of SYMADREM, an interregional joint union for the development of the dikes of the Rhône delta and the sea. “We have no explanation. If we had one, we would perhaps see things differently (…) we cannot accept that the populations upstream are protected and that our citizens of Gard and Camargue are not.“, he continues.
Funding is not in question
Today, thanks to the securing of the first section, 70,000 people are protectedmore not the 30,000 inhabitants affected by the second section. “For a flood equivalent to that of 2003, we would have the same damage“, estimates Gilles Dumas. The councilor affirms, it is not a problem of financing: “The financial model of the work to be done on the Petit Rhône was signed by the State in a State-Region contract in September 2023.”
Faced with this decision that they do not understand, the 500 elected officials that SYMADREM brings together say they unanimously refuse this State proposal “we demand the application of the Rhône plan as it was initially planned.“Gilles Dumas goes further and asserts:”It is not normal to read in the letter received from the Prefects that the communities administer themselves freely but that if we do not withdraw our file, we would not have the right to other authorizations. It is unacceptable not to protect all populations.“
Elected officials are now awaiting a response from the State via the Prefects of Gard and Bouches-du-Rhône.
loading
