A 2 km path leads to the family home that Véronique Gotti bought two years ago. His parents had fought to be connected to electricity there; her for the complete restoration of the path.
“I pay my taxes and even if the house is two kilometers away, we are part of the village. With my parents we have always lived there,” storms Véronique Gotti. This woman from Chassignelles is looking forward to seeing the outcome of the fight she is waging over the path a little over two kilometers long which serves her house, away from the village. Today, this fight is focused on a 200-meter stretch: “There are holes everywhere, the path is almost impassable. The postman and the household waste truck are hesitant to come. I’m not talking about the state of my car or my daughter’s.”
Family house
A little less than two years ago, Véronique Gotti bought the family home located below a former Rocamat quarry, on the edge of the canal. It has a history: before serving as a home, it was the former canteen of this quarry. “My family and I have always lived there. Next door, there was my uncle. With my brothers, sisters and cousins we went to the village school.” Eighteen children from the large Gotti family. “We weren’t the only ones living in the quarry that was our playground. There were more than thirty children,” remembers Véronique.
Slowly, people left. Especially since the quarry closed at the end of the 1990s. The quarryman did not demolish the house: “My parents bought it.” They were the first to fight to find the electricity lost at the end of exploitation; until then they were connected to the company. Today, it is for the access road that Véronique Gotti is fighting, especially since she plans to make this house a somewhat unusual gîte.
Two road owners
“For twenty years, my father (Henri) maintained the path by loading the crushed stone into his wheelbarrow, without saying anything or asking for anything. In the two years since I bought the house, nothing has been done and the path is deteriorating.”
The town hall does not want to say much. “We are not looking to cause controversy, especially since the holes have been filled in on our part of the path,” says Maryan Truchy, first deputy. They were filled in a month ago. But not along the entire route; over 1,800 m. The last 200 meters do not belong to the town but to Voies Navigables de France. Véronique contacted the river domain operation. “A week ago we were not aware that this stretch of path belonged to us,” says a VNF manager who went there. “Now we are going to regularize the situation.”
