The community must pay “more than 100,000 euros” per year to protect the hamlet.
AFP
“Heartbreaking”… Threatened with being submerged with each storm, houses in a small town in Brittany in the west of France will be razed, for lack of a lasting solution to protect them from rising waters . “We don't really have a choice, the sea takes over,” says Fanch Renevot, in front of the truck where the furniture of his white pavilion is piled up, a stone's throw from the beach, purchased in 2015 with a view to retire.
“Six months after we bought it, it went into the red zone,” he says, in reference to the classification as a “very high hazard” of marine submersion of this hamlet in the small town of Treffiagat, on the south coast of the Finistère department.
“Not sentimental on stone”, Fanch Renevot does not say he is particularly affected by the sale of this second home. “My wife, it disturbed her a little more: it’s paradise here after all,” confides the 60-year-old roofer, scanning the few houses erected in the middle of the dunes and pines.
“When the sea has come to the end, I will be obliged to go up to the attic and have someone come and get me”
Built in a low-lying area in the 70s and 80s, these homes are separated from the beach by a simple dune, which has gradually thinned over the years. Backfilled before winter, it threatens to give in to the onslaught of the sea with each storm.
“The sea is stronger than us”
Once the houses are razed, the hamlet will be returned to nature.
AFP
In November 2023, in anticipation of the passage of storm Ciaran, around twenty houses were evacuated by prefectural decree. “All the containment systems that we have been able to implement over the past 15-20 years, namely the dike, riprap, piles, are not effective,” lists Stéphane Le Doaré, president (LR) of the Pays Bigouden Sud Community of Communes (CCPBS).
Each year, the community must spend “more than 100,000 euros” to reinforce the dune, reinforcing it with thousands of m3 of sand. “It’s a bottomless pit, a bandage on a wooden leg, because the sea is stronger than us,” underlines Stéphane Le Doaré.
“We cannot sustainably guarantee that the residents behind the dune will be able to live in safety,” he explains. “The models prove that, inexorably, the sea will enter this place.”
Spoiled retirement
But the prospect of having to leave this popular seaside does not delight local residents. “It’s heartbreaking for everyone,” says a lady, without wanting to give her name. “It’s ruining our retirement,” insists a couple in their seventies at the door of their house.
“I will leave with the sea,” Denise (first name changed) even proclaims from her kitchen window. The octogenarian, who has lived in the neighborhood since he was four years old, cannot imagine moving. “When the sea has come all the way, I will be obliged to go up to the attic and have someone come and get me,” she said.
Advantageous redemption conditions
The CCPBS undertook to buy seven houses to destroy them, then fifteen, in total, in the longer term. The purchase of the first two houses was approved at the beginning of December by the community council. The activation of state aid enabled the CCPBS to offer advantageous buyout conditions, at the market price (i.e. from 280,000 to 687,000 euros) for the first seven houses. But the financial aspect struggles to convince residents who are most attached to their residence. “I understand the psychological trauma for certain families who have lived there since the 70s and raised their children there,” sympathizes Stéphane Le Doaré. “They will end up hearing it, it’s just time for acceptability,” the elected official wants to believe.
(afp)
