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CLIMATE CRISIS

France destroys seaside flats threatened by coastal erosion

French authorities on Friday started demolishing a seaside block of flats that has come to symbolise the country's battle against climate change-linked coastal erosion.

Published: 3 February 2023 17:07 CET
France destroys seaside flats threatened by coastal erosion
Bulldozers next to the Signal building prior to its demolition in Soulac-sur-Mer, south-western France. Photo by PHILIPPE LOPEZ / AFP)

When the four-storey building was built behind the beach in the southwestern Gironde region in 1967, it stood 200 metres away from the shoreline.

But its 75 or so flats in the town of Soulac-sur-Mer had to be evacuated in 2014 after the sea crept up to within 20 metres of the structure.

Local authorities scrambled to rid the building of asbestos in the following years, before a huge mechanical digger took a swing at its facade on Friday, as several former residents looked on.

“It’s the memories of four generations” that are being destroyed, said 76-year-old Vincent Duprat, one of the home owners.

The sea “has taken back what is rightfully hers”.

MAP The French towns at urgent risk from coastal erosion

Environment Minister Christophe Bechu said the demolition was a sign of “what the rising waters and coastal erosion have is store for lots of other areas along the French coastline”.

By 2100, 20 percent of the coastline and up to 50,000 homes would be affected, he said.

Erosion is a natural phenomenon that has helped shape our continents over millennia.

But scientists say it is being accelerated by the warming of the planet, exacerbated by rising sea levels brought about by melting ice caps and glaciers, and by the more powerful waves that warmer oceans hold.

The sandy beaches of the Bay of Biscay between France and Spain are expected to recede by 50 metres by 2050, the Observatory of the Nouvelle-Aquitaine Coastline says.

But climate change and rising sea levels could increase this by an extra 20 metres in some areas, the Observatory’s Nicolas Bernon said.

In 2020, after a seven-year legal battle, a court ruled that French authorities should compensate families who had been forced to evacuate the building in Soulac-sur-Mer to the tune of 70 percent of the original value of their homes.

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ENVIRONMENT

The guardian angels of the source of the Seine

The river Seine, the centrepiece of the Paris Olympics opening ceremony in July, starts with a few drops of water in a mossy grotto deep in the woods of central France.

Published: 25 April 2024 09:43 CEST
The guardian angels of the source of the Seine

And not a day goes by without Jacques and Marie-Jeanne Fournier going to check the source only a few paces from their door.

“I go there at least three times a day. It’s part of me,” 74-year-old Marie-Jeanne told AFP.

Her parents were once the guardians of the source, and now that unofficial mantle has fallen on her and husband Jacques.

Barely 60 souls live in the village of Source-Seine in the wooded hills north of Dijon.

By the time the tiny stream has reached the French capital 300 kilometres away it has become a mighty river 200 metres wide.

But some mornings barely a few damp traces are visible at the source beneath the swirling dragonflies. If you scratch about a bit in the grass, however, a small stream quickly forms.

The source — one of two spots where the river officially starts — bubbles up through the remains of an ancient Gallo-Roman temple built about 2,000 years ago, said Jacques Fournier, 73.

Celtic goddess

But you could easily miss this small out-of-the-way valley. There are few signs to direct tourists to the statue of the goddess Sequana, the Celtic deity who gave her name to the river.

In the mid-19th century Napoleon III had a grotto and cave built “where the source was captured to honour the city of Paris and Sequana,” said Marie-Jeanne Fournier.

Her parents moved into a house next to the grotto and its reclining nymph in the early 1950s when she was four years old.

Her father Paul Lamarche was later appointed its caretaker and would regularly welcome visitors. A small stone bridge over the Seine while it is still a stream is named after him.

“Like most children in the village in the 1960s,” Fournier learned to swim in a natural pool in the river just downstream from her home.

“It was part of my identity,” said Fournier, who has lived all her life close to rivers. She retired back to Source-Seine to run a guesthouse because “the Seine is a part of my parents’ legacy”.

The Olympic flame is due to be carried past the site on July 12th on its way to Paris.

The couple will be there to greet it, but as members of the Sources of the Seine Association, they are worried how long the river will continue to rise near their home.

Every year the grotto has become drier and drier as climate change hits the region, where some of France’s finest Burgundy wines are produced.

“My fear is that the (historic) source of the Seine will disappear,” said Marie-Jeanne Fournier. “Perhaps the source will be further downstream in a few years.”

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