The mayor of the commune of Alpes-Maritimes has decided to issue an order to prohibit all natural disasters.
An original response to a much more serious problem.
Five years after the devastating storm Alex, the town is no longer able to obtain insurance.
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Storm Alex: desolation in the Alpes-Maritimes
The news makes you smile, but the situation could have been dramatic for the town of Breil-sur-Roya. Last June, the commune of Alpes-Maritimes, hit hard by storm Alex in 2020, was dropped by its insurer for the year 2025. A hard blow for the locality which then initiated legal proceedings against its historic partner.
On December 31, the mayor of the town, Sébastien Olharan, rejoiced at a first victory: a few days before the judgment, the insurer finally agreed to renew its guarantees for one year, particularly for civil liability and legal protection. , allowing the locality to open its reception structures for the start of the 2025 school year, such as its nurseries, schools and leisure centers.
But the victory is only partial: the buildings of the municipality are still not insured and are the subject of a referral to the administrative court. If it is not obligatory for a town hall to insure them for damage to property, this represents an enormous financial risk for the municipality in the event, for example, of another devastating natural disaster. To limit the risks, the councilor of Breil-sur-Maire therefore decided to react with humor to the situation: he simply issued an order prohibiting natural disasters in his municipality.
An alternative route for rainwater
The municipal decree, which concerns “the ban on claims on municipal buildings which are now uninsured”, was published on January 1. Considering “the considerable financial risk posed to the Municipality of Breil-sur-Roya by the lack of insurance on municipal buildings”that he “These are public buildings financed by taxpayers' money” and that the municipality, owner of 70 real estate properties, does not benefit from a budgetary situation allowing it to “dealing with the financial consequences of a new disaster in the absence of insurance”the text provides that “natural disasters are prohibited throughout the territory of the municipality of Breil-sur-Roya”.
The order concerns fires, floods, land movements, earthquakes, landslides, storms, snow, hail, violent winds, avalanches, water damage, electrical damage, “likely to damage municipal buildings”. For rainwater runoff, “at the origin of the torrential floods, a diversion route is proposed outside the territory of the municipality”, points out the text again with humor.
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Furthermore, since the buildings are no longer insured, the mayor prohibits “human activities likely to harm communal property such as riots, terrorism, vandalism, theft and involuntary damage”. The mayor finally entrusts “Mr. Commander of the Gendarmerie, the municipal police, Météo-France, the insurers” et “all persons having an influence on the weather or sufficient power to protect municipal buildings against any form of disaster” the task of implementing the order.
If the mayor of Breil-sur-Roya agrees on the side “absurd” of the decree, it highlights the difficulties that certain municipalities, departments or regions encounter with their insurance, while climatic disasters have multiplied in recent years, causing numerous damages. Indeed, according to him, the refusal of his historic insurer to renew his contract and the refusal of the other professionals contacted is directly linked to the Alex storm. “This decision is a direct and obvious consequence of Storm Alex, part of the compensation for which had been paid a few weeks earlier,” writes the mayor in a press release.
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Storm Alex cost 10 million euros in damage to insured property. “Or five years of remuneration for the 50 municipal agents, if the municipality had to take the money out of its pocket”, had already alerted Sébastien Olharan to AFP last November. Without insurance, the bill could be unbearable for the small town of 2,200 inhabitants in the event of another storm Alex.
