The owners of the "Signal", a building symbol of coastal erosion, soon to be compensated

The protocol was signed between the State, the town hall of Soulac-sur-Mer and the community of municipalities Médoc Atlantique which, officially, will become the owner of the building to destroy it.

The 75 owners will receive compensation from the State up to 70% of the estimated original value of the property, on the condition of transferring this property for one symbolic euro to the community of municipalities and waiving any additional claim for compensation. They have until December 2021 to accept.

The first compensation payments should be able to take place from March 2021, according to the prefecture.

"This file is exceptional and should remain so", warned the prefect of New Aquitaine Fabienne Buccio. There is no question that it becomes a case law.

Built 200 m from the shore in 1967, the four-story building now stands on the edge of a sandy dune that threatens to collapse, just 20 m from the waves. In 2014, the prefecture issued a dangerous decree and the residents had to permanently empty the premises.

The co-owners had then started a legal battle to be compensated which ended with a refusal by the Council of State in August 2018. Local parliamentarians then seized on the file until an envelope of 7 million euros euros is adopted by Parliament.

"Today's favorable outcome was not obvious (...) only a legislative device could allow it", admits the mayor of Soulac-sur-Mer and president of the community of communes, Xavier Pintat.

"There was a soul"

"It is the tenacity that paid off, the perseverance in the middle of an ocean of doubt", also rejoiced the former senator LREM Françoise Cartron who defended the file in Paris. "It is a moving moment", she confided, "this is where we see the link between the national elected representatives and the citizens. Without the legislative tool, we could not achieve it".

For Jean-José Guichet, who represents the co-owners, the majority of them should accept the agreement. Otherwise they will be expelled: the "choice is limited", he said, "people are so weary, we've been fighting for years".

"It was not a residence for super rich people. It was very mixed, we were all united. There was a soul in this Signal", he adds, remembering his daughters and granddaughters coming. on holiday. "You have to be aware that we couldn't stay any longer. I had been following the advancing sea for 25 years," adds Mr. Guichet, owner since 1978.

The building had been removed from asbestos in 2018 to prevent "12.000 tonnes of rubble contaminated with asbestos" from falling into the sea and on the beach of Soulac, a popular seaside resort in the Médoc. The cost of this asbestos removal, one million euros, had exceptionally been borne by the State.

"Things like this should no longer happen. This is an example," Signal ". We will have to be extremely vigilant on new settlements," Jean-José Guichet asked the representatives of the State who signed the protocol. .

"Our case is not unique, I have phone calls from Martinique, Réunion, where there are cases similar to Signal," he then told reporters.

"This favorable outcome does not stop coastal erosion, we will have some in the years to come (...) it will become a challenge," admitted Xavier Pintat.